On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Volume 2 (of 2)Somerville, Mary
History
On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Volume 2 (of 2)
Somerville, Mary
Matter -- Constitution; Microscopy; Natural history
The eggs, when laid, are deposited in a receptacle between the back and
the shell of the female Daphnia, and after the young come into the water
they undergo no transformations. Between each brood the Daphnia moults,
and the egg receptacle is thrown off with the exuvia. After several
changes of skin the young Daphniæ come to maturity and lay eggs, which
produce successive generations of females throughout the spring and
summer; but in the autumn males appear, and then the eggs are retained
in the receptacle of the female and are not hatched till spring. If the
female should moult after this, the case with the eggs in it is cast off
with her outer skin, which then becomes a protection to the eggs during
the winter, and they are hatched in spring, producing females.
_Phyllopoda._
The second order of gill-footed Crustacea are called Phyllopoda, because
they have gills like the leaves of a book attached to their lamelliform
swimming feet. Their bodies are divided into many segments, and they
form two groups, one of which has a carapace, the other has not. The
Apus cancriformis is an example of the first. It is about two inches and
a half long, and is a large animal compared with the others of its
class. Its head and thorax are covered by an oval carapace, and its
cylindrical body is composed of thirty articulations. It has a compound
movable eye in the middle of its forehead, and a sessile eye on each
side of it. All the members that follow the apparatus of the mouth have
a foliaceous form, and are in constant motion even when the animal is at
rest. The Apus has sixty pairs of jointed legs; the number of joints in
these and in the other appendages is estimated to be not less than two
millions. However, the instruments chiefly used for locomotion are the
first pair of feet, which are very long and serve for oars; with these
the animal can swim freely in any position, but when they are at rest it
floats on the surface of the stagnant water in which it lives, and the
fin feet maintain a constant whirlpool in the water, which brings the
small animals on which it feeds to its mouth.
The Branchipes stagnalis, which may be taken as a type of the second
order, has a perfectly transparent segmented body nearly an inch long,
eleven pairs of pale red gill-feet, antennæ of bluish green, and a long
tail ending in red bristles. The head has two large eyes on movable
stems, and a sessile black oculus between them. Filiform antennæ spring
from the upper part of the head; the other pair, like two large horns,
are turned downwards. The last ring of the swimming tail has two plates
with ciliated appendages.
The Artemia salina differs very little from the Branchipes. It abounds
so much in the brine pans at Lymington and other salt works, as to give
a red tinge to the nearly concentrated brine, the temperature of which
is so high that no other animal could live for a moment in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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