40 VIGNETTES FROM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



most beautiful. Its crystalline dwelling is finer and 

 its movements more graceful than the others. Why 

 F. campanulata is here sketched in preference is 

 because of the exceptional character of the group. 

 They are solitary in their habits as a rule ; but 

 here seven individuals (only six are drawn) were 

 found attached to the stem of a water-plant so 

 gracefully arranged, forming a most delightful 

 picture. Instances of this character are often 

 found in nature ; where separate individuals, as if 

 following the law which by its predominance has 

 made them individually beautiful, combine to form 

 another beautiful object, just as a little child may 

 collect a bunch of wild flowers and arrange them 

 in a pleasing nosegay, or join hand-in-hand with 

 companions in a dance on the village green. These 

 natural groupings of beauty are very instructive, as 

 showing the almost universal tendency in this 

 beneficent direction of all animate and inanimate 

 things alike. They form the pictures which the 

 artist loves, and which he will travel miles to see 

 and immortalise on his canvas, and the micro - 

 scopist sit long into the " stilly night " beholding 

 with wondering and enchanted vision. 



