Vorticella nebulifera is quite common in swamps and ponds. We find it attached to a great number of water plants. This species is not built up in the form of a tree, but it is nevertheless beautiful and graceful. The delicate, slender stems start from a node, or rounded mass, sometimes fifty or more of these fairy like creatures in one colony, all attached to a common centre, swaying about, coiling their delicate transparent stems, and again uncoiling quick as a flash, apparently dallying and playing, but never interfering nor becoming entangled one with another.
The Stentor is another member of the Vorticellinæ family. It is one of the largest of the infusoria, plainly visible to the naked eye, and one of the most interesting and curious of all the strange animals in the microscopic world. It assumes various forms. When swimming, it looks round and plump (Fig. 2), and rushes through the water pell-mell, knocking the smaller animals right and left, always seeming to be in a great hurry, unless two friendly ones happen to meet, when they frequently stop and put their heads together a moment as if exchanging greetings, then away they sail again, dashing through the water, capturing and devouring the smaller creatures as they go. And now a couple meet that are very communicative—two gossips, no doubt! At all events, they put their heads together and conclude to have a good sociable time.
And they are sensible enough to know that they cannot stand around loose in the water or public highway. So they select a cosey spot and fasten their feet to a plant or some firm object, and stretch out their footstalks sometimes to a great length, making veritable trumpets of themselves. (Fig. 3.)
And who knows what grave matters may be settled during these conclaves? or perhaps they are only rehearsing gossip, as they have had every possible chance to see what was going on among their neighbors.
THE STENTORS.—"VERITABLE TRUMPETS."
Sometimes one settles down alone near a group of others, and seems to proclaim in stentorian voice that it is reception day and he is ready to receive. Or perhaps he is simply a herald as his name indicates, whose business it is to conduct ceremonies and regulate affairs! At any rate, though our ears are too dull to catch the voices of these curious beings of a lower world—so near, and yet in another sense, so far away, it would be difficult to believe that these animated creatures have no means of communication and nothing to communicate.
PART II
THROUGH A MICROSCOPE