Fig. 37.—The Rotifer Noteus quadricornis—to show its curious four-horned carapace—from which the wheel apparatus, wa, emerges in front, and the tail, t, behind; somewhat as the head and tail of a tortoise emerge from its protective "box" or carapace. The ridges on the horney covering of the Rotifer recall the horney plates of the tortoises and turtles.
The 500 different species of Wheel Animalcules or Rotifera differ from one another in the exact shape of the wheel-apparatus, in the jointing of the body and its general shape, and in the development, in some, of a hard skin or shell like a turtle's or tortoise's shell (Fig. 37) over that broadest region of the body in which in our Fig. 34, A, the stomach marked "St" is placed. They differ also in the shape of the gizzard's teeth, in the presence of paddles or legs (in Pedalion alone), and in the presence in some of longer or shorter projecting movable rods or bristles in pairs or in bunches. Many build for themselves tubular habitations of jelly or of hard cemented particles. They are all minute (from the ¹/₁₂ to the ¹/₅₀₀ in. in length). They are divided into five principal groups, which are (1) the crawlers, like the common Rotifer (Fig. 34), which can crawl like a leech and also swim freely by aid of their wheel-apparatus; (2) the naked free swimmers, which do not crawl, but move only by swimming; (3) the turtle-shelled free swimmers (Fig. 37) like the last, but provided with strong, often faceted, angular, and spike-bearing shells or "bucklers," from which head and wheel-apparatus project in front and narrow tail behind; (4) the rooted or fixed forms (Figs. 37 bis); these never swim when full grown, but each forms and inhabits a protective tube or case; (5) the skipping or darting forms. Of these there is only the Pedalion mirum (Figs. 35 and 36), which is quite unlike all the other wheel animalcules in having limbs like those of the minute water-fleas (Nauplius, Cyclops) which strike the water and are fringed with feather-like hairs.
The larval or young form of Crustacea known as "the Nauplius." This is the "Nauplius" of a kind of Prawn. The three pairs of branched limbs are well seen. Much magnified.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] For some account of "cilia," see "Science from an Easy Chair," Figs. 29, 33, 40 and the accompanying text.