110 The Microscope. 



shot in the centre of each. At least such is its early 

 form; for the frog-spawn which I brought into the 

 house had begun to change its aspect, and instead 

 of little black shot-like balls, contained bean-shaped 

 morsels, which each day assumed more and more the 

 appearance of young tadpoles. I left a small portion 

 of this frog- spawn in a wine-glass, and I put the con- 

 tents of the bottles into sundry saucers and finger- 

 glasses, and proceeded to examine their contents, by 

 placing a drop from each (one at a time of course) in 

 the live-box, and transferring this to the microscope's 

 stage. In this way I observed a good variety of ani- 

 malcules, and pleasantly revived my recollections of 

 them. The young tadpoles throve very well in the 

 wine-glass, and in due time arrived at the stage in 

 which I wished to examine them. 



It is possible to observe these in the live-box, or 

 in a watch-glass ; but my experience of either plan is 

 that tadpoles wriggle most unpleasantly, and never 

 more so than when one is making minute and difficult 

 observations upon them. So I called to mind how 

 pleasantly I examined them some years ago, through 

 the sides of a wine-glass, with the Coddington 

 lens ; and it occurred to me, ' ' why not attempt to use 

 the tube of the microscope in the same way ?" For 

 the young tadpole, when about the size of a grain of 

 oats, though very fidgety when under constraint, has 

 a habit when left to its own devices of resting motion- 

 less for several minutes at a time. It possesses a 

 fringe-like arrangement around its mouth, enabling it 

 to hold on to any filmy remnants of the frog- spawn or 



