BR YANTS " THA NA TOPSJS." 97 



CHAPTER VII. 



MOLLUSC A, INSECTS, ETC., OF THE FRESH- WATER 



AQUARIUM. 



THE solitary naturalist in his search after the mani- 

 fold living forms of life soon feels, as William Cullen 

 Bryant says in " Thanatopsis," that 



" To him who in the love of nature holds 



Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

 A various language." 



It is a language which gives forth no uncertain 

 sound ; and, although the mystery of earthly life 

 starts forth even more vividly when the student dis- 

 covers the hourly carnage by which it can alone be 

 sustained, this does not detract from an unshaken 

 confidence in the wisdom and even love of the 

 Almighty Power that superintends it ! Mere earthly 

 life is not the highest thing in the universe. The 

 carelessness with which myriads are crushed, and 

 even their types are lost, proclaims it to none more 

 clearly than to the naturalist. We see these things 

 but as in a glass darkly, yet we obtain a glimpse of 

 the important fact that the life-scheme of our globe' 

 past and present, is one and indivisible, and that the 

 individual members of it which perish and give place 



H 



