2 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



I trow not ; for it surely indicates by no means a 

 lofty conception of things if we are perpetually to 

 speak and think of living beings as we should talk of 

 the items in a store. Each organism, like the smith 

 in "The Fair Maid of Perth/' fights for its own 

 hand in the struggle for existence. If in the course 

 of its fight, it aids or opposes the interests of other 

 living things, it will receive benefit or incur failure in 

 a meed corresponding to its own ways and means. 

 This is really the true philosophy of natural history 

 study. To " consider the lilies " as if they were 

 mere contrivances for human ends and " uses " is a 

 tolerably small-minded fashion of regarding the chil- 

 dren of life. To know something of their histories, 

 structure, and relationships, and thereby to learn how 

 life jogs along its primrose way (or the reverse), is 

 in itself an education worth much seeking after and 

 much painstaking care. 



A truce to philosophy, however. On a piece of 

 stone close by I discern a colony of these encrusting 

 shells. Into the pool I drop the stone and its tenants. 

 Watch what happens. The upper 

 end of each little shell (fig. i) un- 

 closes, as does a trap-door, and 

 forth issues a set of " feelers," which 

 remind you of delicate feathery 

 plumes. Now, backwards and 

 forwards in the water wave these 

 Plumes, expanding to the full in 

 l' sTeiffrom" their outward movement, and then 

 the top. gracefully folding inwards, as a 



preliminary to their next and succeeding sweep. 



These plumes, moreover, you would find, on micro- 

 scopic examination, to be abundantly provided with 



