Vorticella

“ It may be mentioned that according to a communication by letter from Schaudinn, Vorticella may be found in freshly evacuated fæces, but always only after the administration of a water enema. In spite of this, several other investigators mention Vorticellæ as intestinal parasites of man.
The Chilodon dentatus (Ehrenberg) recorded in 1903 by J. Guiart as a parasite of man, which may be found in all infusions, can hardly have lived in the man from whose fæces it was cultivated, but may represent a chance admixture both in the fæces and the cultivations. ”

“ This species of the vorticella is very scarce, it seems only to have been seen by Rösel, who found it on the monoculus quadricornis, till it was discovered in the year 1784 by Müller, who had sought for it several years before, but in vain.
The body is cylindrical, crystalline, and appears almost empty; it has three pellucid points disposed lengthways, the apex is truncated in an oblique direction, the margin bent back. The upper part contracts itself, and the margin then assumes a conical shape, with a convex surface ”

“ Besides the Amœba, Paramœcium, and Vorticella there are thousands of other Protozoa. Most of them live in water, but a few live in damp sand or moss, and some live inside the bodies of other animals as parasites. Of those which live in water some are marine, while others are found only in fresh-water streams and lakes. ”

“ A distinct axial fiber extends from the pedal disc to the peristome and gives off a number of branches. This fiber is analogous to the myonemes in Vorticella. An indistinct longitudinal furrow can be made out occasionally. ”

“ The fore-part cylindrical, the hinder-part tapering, and ending nearly in a point.
303. Vorticella Fritillina. V. cylindrica vacua, apice truncata, ciliis prælongis. Empty cylindrical vorticella, the apex truncated.
304. Vorticella Truncatella. V. cylindrica, differta, apice truncata, cyliis breviusculis. Cylindrical vorticella, stuffed or filled, the apex truncated, with very short cilia.
This is one of the larger kind of animalcula; the body is crystalline, and replete with black molecules; the skin is perfectly smooth and colourless, the hinder extremity rounded, and the anterior truncated ”

“ Such states of the moment consciousness may be largely hypothetical, but they are probably present in the very lowest representatives in the scale of evolution. The throwing out of pseudopodia in the amoeba are as perfect in the daughter amoeba as in the mother before fusion has taken place. The young vorticella is just as efficient as its parent in its sudden spring-like reactions of contracture and expansion, both of its body and of its long attached thread-like fibre. ”

“ That just described is the simplest, consisting merely of a hemispherical ciliated cup, attached to a single thread. It is barely visible to the naked eye. But there is a compound species which I have this year found to be extremely abundant in my aquarium,—whose occupants, both large and small, it excels in singularity and beauty. In structure it is to the simple Vorticella what a many-branched zoophyte is to an Actinia. My attention was first drawn to the presence of this creature by observing some pebbles and fronds of green ulva thickly coated with a fine flocculent down. ”

“ In Peritrichaceae (fig. iii. 8-22, 25, 26) , the only ciliate group with a stalk, it grows for some time after its formation, and on fission two new stalks continue the old one, so as to form a branched colony (fig. iii. 18) . In Vorticella (fig. iii. 11, 12, 14, &c.) the stalk is hollow and elastic, and attached to it along a spiral is a prolongation of the ectosarc containing a bundle of myonemes, so that by the contractions of the bundle the stalk is pulled down into a corkscrew spiral, and on the relaxation of the muscle the elasticity of the hollow stalk straightens it out. ”

“ A very large number of Infusoria represent unduloids, or portions of unduloids, and this type of surface appears and reappears in a great variety of forms. The cups of the various species of Vorticella (Fig. 75) are nothing in the world but a beautiful series of unduloids, or partial unduloids, in every gradation from a form that is all but cylindrical to one that is all but a perfect sphere. These unduloids are not completely symmetrical, but they are such unduloids as develop themselves when we suspend an oil-globule between two unequal rings, or blow a soap-bubble between two unequal pipes ”

“ The Vorticellina belong to the upper division of the Protozoa—the ciliata, or ciliated animalcules, and they have a mouth, an œsophagus, and an orifice for the exit of their food.
Many observers used to ascribe to those creatures a [22] complete intestinal canal, but such an apparatus is now believed not to exist in any of the Infusoria. Food particles, after leaving the œsophagus, are thrust forward into the sarcode, or soft flesh, and any cavity thus formed acts as a stomach. ”

“ Man is, however, sometimes the victim of his superior [52] organization, and no process of "fission" can make the lusty lean. [9]
[9] Balbiani in his 'Recherches sur les Phénomènes Sexuels des Infusoires,' speaks of the Vorticellids as the only Infusoria dividing longitudinally. In other species such appearances arise from conjunction.
The bottles in which these creatures live, in happy ignorance that they are called by so crackjaw a name as Cothurnia imberbis, were described as Carapaces by Ehrenberg, but they bear no resemblance to the shell of a turtle or crab. ”

“ These are used when swimming or running. But perhaps the most singular and beautiful of all the infusorial animalcules are the Vorticellæ, which resemble minute cups or flower-bells, mounted upon slender retractile threadlike stalks, by which they are moored to the surface of the weeds and stones. They are called Vorticellæ on account of the little vortices or whirlpools which they continually create in the water, by means of a fringe of very minute cilia placed round the brim of their cups. ”

“ To himself he thinks: 'Imma and I are lost! I cannot get out without leaving the imprint of my steps in the snow'—"
"And what did he do?" asked Vortigern, more and more interested in the story that threw an undefined sense of uneasiness in his heart. "How did the two escape from their perilous plight, the poor lovers!"
"Imma, a robustious doxy, a girl both of head and resolution, descends by the window, bravely takes the archchaplain on her back, and, without tripping under the beloved burden, crosses a wide courtyard that separates her quarters from one of the corridors of the palace. ”

“ The first generation proceeds directly from the spore, and consists of a simple green expansion which is short-lived and very small, not usually exceeding half the size of a small finger-nail. This prothallus, as it is termed, has small, root-like hairs which fix it to the earth or elsewhere. The prothallia are to be seen in large numbers on the sides of flower-pots in neglected greenhouses. Each little green scale is a young fern-plant during its sexual generation. The male and female organs are much the same shape as those of mosses. ”

“ After a time, however, the cells are produced transversely as well as longitudinally, resulting in the formation of a flattened leaf-like expansion (Fig. 125, d) , a cellular structure, the so-called Prothallus, which can scarcely be distinguished from a young Marchantia. In this Prothallus are developed Archegonia and Antheridia: the union of the embryo-cell of the Archegonia and the spiral filament of the Antheridia gives rise to the new Fern, which may be seen growing out of the Prothallus (Fig. 126) , which soon passes away. ”

“ The effect of the remark on Cabell was startling. He staggered back a step or so as if he had been struck in the face, and a crimson flush overspread his brow. Jean, the valet, straightened up suddenly and looked around. There was a queer expression, too, in his eyes; an expression which Hatch could not fathom.
"Murder?" gasped Cabell, at last.
"Yes, he speaks English all right," remarked The Thinking Machine. "Now, Mr. Cabell, will you please tell me just who Miss Austin is, and where she is, and her mental condition? Believe me, it may save you a great deal of trouble. ”

“ They are thrown off by the animals who preserve no other connection with them than the attachment at the bottom.
The Micrographic Dictionary describes the family Ophrydina as corresponding to Vorticellina with a carapace. Stein places them with Vorticellids, &c., amongst his Peritricha, which are characterised by a spiral wreath of cilia round the mouth. ”

“ In the Foraminifera we see smaller groups of such creatures arranged into more definite shapes. Not only do these almost structureless Protozoa unite into regular or irregular aggregations of various sizes, but among some of the more organized ones, as the Vorticellæ, there are also produced clusters of individuals united to a common stem. But these little societies of monads, or cells, or whatever else we may call them, are societies only in the lowest sense: there is no subordination of parts among them—no organization. Each of the component units lives by and for itself ”

“ I had no fear of Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one of the windows of Mr. Fortescue’s bedroom. It looked into the orchard, and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily reach it, even without a ladder. The danger was all the greater, as, when the weather was mild, Mr. Fortescue always slept with the window open. ”

“ Fortescue rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian nose upraised and his hands behind his back, pausing to look long and hard at the fruit-trees against the wall.
Ann Veronica watched him from the dining-room window, and after some moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse direction to Mr. Fortescue's steps, and encountered him with an air of artless surprise.
"Hello!" said Ann Veronica, with arms akimbo and a careless, breathless manner. "You Mr. Fortescue?" ”

“ In the former the prothallus produces one or more fern-plants vegetatively, the projection which develops into the sporophyte in many cases occupying the position of an archegonium. In some apogamous Ferns sporangia may occur on the prothallus and the vegetative organs of the sporophyte may also occur singly. In apospory the converse phenomenon is seen, the gametophyte springing vegetatively from the sporangium, receptacle of the sorus, or leaf-margin of the fern-plant. In a number of cases, though not in all, apospory appears to be correlated with a failure of the sporangia to develop. ”

“ The great majority of all Protista live in the sea, some swimming freely on the surface, some creeping at the bottom, and others attached to stones, shells, plants, etc. Many species of Protista also live in fresh water, but only a very small number on dry land (for example, Myxomycetes and some Protoplasta) . Most of them can be seen only through the microscope, except when millions of individuals are found accumulated. ”

“ In forms, however, which, like Vorticelia, are of sessile habit, small free-swimming individuals are liberated which seek out and conjugate with the ordinary sessile individuals. Here we have an instance of a morphological differentiation of the gametes which is clearly adaptive to the life-conditions of the species. In other Protozoa there may be, as already stated, differences, more or less pronounced, between young and adult individuals, and syngamy may take place either between young individuals (microgamy) or between adults (macrogamy) ”

“ His son Michael had been a favourite with the Heathcote girls as long as they could remember. He was considered to be of their own rank in life, and Mrs Fortescue, in consequence, asked him to dine, and play with them during the holidays. When he was very small, he rather bullied them; but as he grew older, he began to think a great deal of Florence’s beauty, and even to imagine himself in love with her. He was the sort of young man who always kept his father in a state of alarm with regard to money, and spent a great deal more than he had a right to do. ”

“ Not once did there come to her a single intimation of the position she filled at the opera. As she felt that unseen eye upon her, Jeanne experienced a strange sensation. She went hot and cold all over. Then a great calm possessed her.
“It is the strangest thing!” she exclaimed to Florence one night. “It is like—what would you call it?—a benediction. I am dreadfully afraid; yet I find peace. It is like, shall I say, like seeing God? Should you be afraid of God if you saw Him?”
“Yes, I think I might,” Florence answered soberly.
“Yet they say God is Love. Why should one fear Love?” ”

“ The hotel smelt, two puppies were asleep on her bed, and her bedroom window looked into a belfry, which saluted her slumbering form every quarter of an hour. Philip left his walking-stick, his socks, and the Baedeker at Bologna; she only left her sponge-bag. Next day they crossed the Apennines with a train-sick child and a hot lady, who told them that never, never before had she sweated so profusely. "Foreigners are a filthy nation," said Harriet. "I don't care if there are tunnels; open the windows." He obeyed, and she got another smut in her eye. Nor did Florence improve matters. ”

“ Florence dragged a pair of heavy field glasses to her eyes.
“Seems real enough,” she murmured. “White boat with a red gunwale, sort of short and chubby. I’d know that boat anywhere. What a powerful motor he must have! How he does dart about!”
“If we were there he would vanish,” Jeanne insisted.
“Jeanne, you’re a dreamer.” Florence let the glasses drop to her side. “But then, what is one to expect from a gypsy, you—”
At that instant a cry escaped her lips. “Look! Only look, Jeanne!” She had turned half-about. “Smoke everywhere! The whole island is on fire!” ”