XVI PREFACE. 



have entered on an independent existence, and 

 are followed by the rest. But watch the little 

 individuals in the case ; you see they are also, 

 many of them, ready to assert their independence, 

 and are leaving their habitation. At last you 

 see the case lies shrivelled, useless ; but I desist; 

 I see you are lost in admiration at only one of 

 the creatures of this unknown world to which we 

 have paid a transient visit ; we will, therefore, 

 again beg Science to admit us through her brazen 

 tube, and open the crystal portals, that we may 

 pass into our own world; where, though we 

 meet with no creatures of a compound form, no 

 living globes, we find beings like ourselves, who 



