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2)ip6 into flD^ aquarium* 



By the Rev. William Spiers, M.A., F.G.S., F.R.M.S., etc. 



I. — Desmids and Volvox. 



IN a corner of my study near a window stands a small fresh- 

 water aquarium. Sometimes it is inside the room, and, in 

 fine weather, it is placed outside on the sill. It is furnished 

 with the gatherings of many rambles. Equipped with stick and 

 bottles and net, I have, as opportunity has served, made my way to 

 ponds, ditches, and canals, and after some rather dirty but most 

 delightful fishing, have brought home all sorts of small fry and 

 uninviting-looking mud. Tangled water-weeds, floating scum, 

 prolific duckweed, dripping bog-moss, bedraggled reeds, and rushes; 

 anything and everything that could be hauled out and squeezed 

 into my jars, have been promiscuously collected, and after a 

 cursory examination and rough clearing, tossed into this miniature 

 world, which is bounded on the north, south, east, and west, by 

 glass. 



Having a tolerably wide circle of friends and acquaintances 

 among whom I am generally regarded as having a craze for this 

 sort of occupation, and some of whom no doubt frequently make 

 merry at my expense, I am not often at a loss for suitable com- 

 panions to whom I may exhibit my captures. Bored with my 

 prolix descriptions they no doubt sometimes are, but I am not 

 infrequently rewarded by observing how my visitors will catch my 

 enthusiasm, and take fire from my fervid expositions of the won- 

 drous beauties of almost invisible plants and animals which my 

 pipette now and then brings up out of the grimy water of that 

 rather unattractive aquarium. 



I propose, in a few simple, non-technical papers, to describe to 

 my readers some of the more easily-obtained organisms which I 

 have been able to secure in this way, and which every beginner 

 with the microscope is sure, before long, to become acquainted 

 with. And here I may say that I shall rarely have anything new 

 to relate to those who are accustomed to work of this kind, for I 

 intend to write these papers exclusively for younger and compara- 



