CHAPTER IX. 



POND-LIFE. 



"Let the waters bring forth abundantly." GEN. i. 20. 



" How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who 

 bears up the world of Him who has created, and who provides for the 

 joys even of insects, as carefully as if He were their Father ! " RICHTER. 

 \ 



to a friend for the following 

 story. He was present at a meeting of naval 

 and military officers held at Portsmouth 

 recently, when experiments were made 

 with some new application of machinery 

 in the construction of submarine torpe- 

 does, and after witnessing the character of these 

 dreadful war-ministers, he was introduced to the 

 inventor, to \\hom he then showed some of the marvels of 

 pond-life with his microscope, and in one little drop of 

 water, not larger than a pin's head, an ordinary rotifer 

 appeared with the cilia resembling an invisible rotatory 

 wheel in rapid circulation, producing that vortex in the 

 surrounding water into which all the smaller animalculaa 

 falling, became its prey. His consternation on beholding 

 the complex machinery of the invisible animalculce was 

 equal to my friend's at the marvellous display of intelli- 

 gence in his implements of destruction, and he appeared 



