12 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



glance detects a colony of various inhabitants. We 

 pluck a flower, and in its bosom we see many a 

 charming insect busy at its appointed labor. We 

 pick up a fallen leaf, and if nothing is visible on it, 

 there is probably the trace of an insect larva hidden 

 in its tissue, and awaiting there development. The 

 drop of dew upon this leaf will probably contain 

 its animals, visible under the microscope. This 

 same microscope reveals that the Hood-rain sudden- 

 ly appearing on bread, and awakening superstitious 

 terrors, is nothing but a collection of minute ani- 

 mals (Monas prodigiosa) ; and that the vast tracts 

 of snow which are reddened in a single night owe 

 their color to the marvelous rapidity in reproduc- 

 tion of a minute plant (Protococcus nivalis). The 

 very mould which covers our cheese, our bread, our 

 jam, or our ink, and disfigures our damp walls, is 

 nothing but a collection of plants. The many-col- 

 ored fire which sparkles on the surface of a summer 

 sea at night, as the vessel plows her way, or which 

 drips from the oars in lines of jeweled light, is pro- 

 duced by millions of minute animals. 



Nor does the vast procession end here. Our very 

 mother-earth is formed of the debris of life. Plants 

 and animals which have been build up its solid 

 fabric.* We dig downward thousands of feet be- 

 low the surface, and discover with surprise the 



* See EHRENBERG: Microgeologie : das Erden und Felsen 

 schaffende Wirken des unsichtbar kleinen selbststandigen Lebcns auf 

 der Erde. 1854. 



