The paper I have the honour to read before this Society
might be entitled, with some truth, " The History of a Lost
Opportunity." In a paper which I read before the Royal
Microscopical Society of London, in 1889, on a "New Species
of Megalotrocha," I spoke of Dunk Island, off the coast of
Queensland "I
found the water of such a solitary and lifeless pool literally
swarming with a wonderful pedalion." But at that time
(1888) I did not realise that this rotifer was a totally distinct
and new species. Last August (1893) whilst examining
some water collected in the artificially hollowed-out trunk
of a coconut tree, made by the natives of New Georgia for
drinking purposes, and growing on a small island in Eendoya
Harbour, Solomon Islands, I once again came across this
pedalion in considerable numbers. Then I recognised my
old friend of the Australian coast, and realised that it was
a new species, differing in essential details from the only
known species of Pedalion, P. mirum. Before I could,
however, complete mv examination of this rotifer, the news
arrived that this same species had been discovered by Dr.
Levander, of Helsingfors, in Finland, in October, 1892, and
had been named by him P. fennicum four years after I first
had seen it
