CYCLOPS 217 
they like stagnant ponds. They are to be found in 
suitable situations at almost any time of the year. 
Let us ferret about in our tube, and see if we can 
find another fresh-water Crustacean of microscopic 
proportions—I mean the Cyclops. I suppose you 
have heard of the fabled giants, having a single eye 
in their foreheads, who received the name Cyclops ? 
The little fellow we are looking for is far from 
gigantic in his proportions ; he is no bigger than a 
Water Flea, but he is like the fabled Cyclops, in 
that he has one eye in what might be called his 
forehead. Ah! I have him; now you can see for 
yourselves what he is like. 
Cyclops has a very different form from that of the 
Water Flea ; it has not such an “aldermanic cor- 
poration.” The body is long in proportion to its 
breadth, and may be described as pear-shaped. 
The creature has two pairs of antennz—one large 
and one small ; also five pairs of shortish legs, by 
which it jerks itself rapidly through the water. In 
the Cyclops community the females greatly out- 
number the males. The females are easily known 
by the pair of ovary sacs, or egg-bags, which hang 
one on either side of the lower part of the body. 
One female has been observed to lay eggs ten times 
in succession ; it has been calculated that if eggs 
are deposited at the rate of forty a time eight times 
in three months, in the course of a year a single 
female may be the progenitor of about four thousand 
millions of young. That is to say, one female would 
give birth to three hundred and twenty young in 
three months, and, supposing two hundred and forty 
of them to be females, they in turn would yield other 
28 
