THE MICROSCOPE. 



much of your time. And here I should wish to 

 give you some advice which you will find useful as 

 a beginner. It is well at first to make yourself ac- 

 quainted with various forms of plant-life to run 

 cursorily at first, but mind, only at first, over various 

 objects. You will thus gain a sort of general notion 

 of the interesting field of operations before you. 

 Real special work and I hope you are going in for 

 real work must begin after you have made a general 

 survey of the land in which you wish to make con- 

 quests. It is not well 

 for a beginner to embark 

 all at once, without some 

 general knowledge of 

 the field of labour, into 

 special work. 



All these plants, you 

 will see, evolve oxygen 

 when exposed to the 

 light of the sun ; those 

 bubbles which bespangle 

 that brown-coated stem 

 from the confervae are 

 bubbles of oxygen, which 

 at once disclose, even 



in the absence of further proof, their vegetable nature. 

 Many other forms of undoubted vegetable nature 

 which have been, at one time or another, claimed by 

 the zoologists as belonging to the animal kingdom, 

 might be enumerated. Prominently we may notice 

 that curious protophyte not uncommon in stagnant 

 water, called Volvox globator. Look out for specimens 

 in the spring and summer months ; they are easily 

 seen where they abound, about the size of a small 

 pin's head, and of a greenish colour : they will attract 

 your eye when they roll along in the glass bottle in 



Volvox Globator. 



