POND-LIFE. 229 



equal clearness, the Helicerta, and I quote the author's 

 exact words only to show how observant and correct our 

 forefathers were, who had such very imperfect instruments 

 to work with, so that the most juvenile of students with 

 the humblest of microscopes may learn from them a lesson 

 of perseverance. 



" Another extraordinary kind of animalcule," says this 

 old writer, " appears in a sheath, or case, the end whereof 

 it fastens to the duck-weed roots. This little creature has 

 two seeming wheels, with a great many teeth or notches 

 coming from its head, and turning round as it were upon 

 an axis. At the least touch it draws the wheel-work into 

 its body, and its body into the sheath, after which it 

 appears concealed; but when all is quiet it thrusts itself 

 out again, and the rotation of the wheel- work is renewed." 



To another Fellow of the Eoyal Society, the late 

 Christian philosopher, Philip Henry Gosse, who but 

 recently passed away from us, we are indebted for a full 

 explanation of this wonderful illustration of the almighti- 

 ness of God shown in little things. His description of 

 what he properly calls the architectural instincts of 

 inelicerta will greatly interest any one who has had the 

 good fortune to witness the movements of this busy little 

 rotifer. He says it is an animalcule so minute as to be 

 with difficulty appreciable to the naked eye, inhabiting 

 a tube composed of pellets, which it forms and lays one 

 by one. It is a mason, who not only builds his mansion 

 brick by brick, but makes his bricks as he goes on from 

 substances which he collects around him, shaping them 

 upon a mould which he carries upon his body. Mr. Gosse 

 seems to believe that its first discoverer was Linnaeus, the 

 Swedish naturalist, who flourished about a hundred and 

 sixty years ago. The very best comparison that could 

 have been made by Mr. Gosse was when he likened 



