Midland Naturalist/Volume 01/Pond Life
Pond Life.
With my friend S. S. R., I have again visited the "Productive Pond," (ante p 76,) and two others, in one of which my friend had some time back found Melicerta tyro, the new species found by Dr. Hudson at Sutton Coldfield. At first we thought we had found a specimen, but it proved to be Foscularia campanulata, with a large cluster of eggs at the bottom of the case surrounding its foot. I am sorry to report that Conochilas volvox is becoming scarce, There are, however, other rotifers in great abundance. I found the following this day, (March 16th,) besides other forms of animal and vegetable life too numerous to mention:—Chætonotus larus, Conochilus volvox, Cephalosiphon limnias, Melicerta ringens, Floscularia campanulata, Notommata aurita, Synchæta pecttinata, Polyarthra platutyptera, Ratlus lanaris, Mastigocerca rattus, Euchlanis dilatata, Salpina mucronata, Metopidia acuminata, Rotifer vulgaris, and two other species which I could not identify. One of the ponds we found literally full of Volvox globator. Recently I spent a day at Sutton Park, and found Limnias ceratophylli in extraordinary abundance, and a few specimens of Stephanoceros Eichhornii and Melicerta ringens. In another locality I found a great abundance of Anuræt aecminata, a sprinkling of Pterodina patina, and some few specimens of Anuræa foliacea and Dinocharis pocillum—On the 21st February I found here, for the first time this season, the fine Polyzoan Fredericella sultana. This is, I think, very early for its appearance in a natural habitat. In a zoophyte trough I have now some fine young Plumatella repens just commencing life, and protruding their lophophores whilst still enclosed between the valve-like plates of the statoblasts. from which they have grown. They are objects of great beauty and, being very transparent, their anatomy is plainly visible under the microscope.—Thos. Bolton, Hyde House, Stourbridge.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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