XXIV. 



Some fllMcroscopic /l&ummtes, 



THERE is a strong temptation in this spring weather 

 to anticipate the search for life in the pools. Eager 

 naturalists are already on the qui vive for the annual 

 crop of objects for the microscope, and, collecting-bottle 

 in hand, are to be seen every fine day " grubbing " for 

 specimens, as the onlookers name the quest. One is 

 tempted to remark, however, that, to find interesting 

 specimens, it is not necessary to go beyond one's own 

 rain-water barrel, or the gutters of the house-roof. 



I have been reading anew to-day incited thereto 

 by the discovery of certain animalcules in some rain- 

 water which had collected on my window-sill the 

 account of a remarkable discovery made by that 

 worthy old Dutch naturalist, Leeuwenhoek, some- 

 where about the year 1702. He was a great authority 

 on microscope-glasses in days when that instrument 

 was in its infancy ; and as became an expert, was 

 perpetually on the look-out for objects wherewith to 

 test the powers of the lenses he had ground. 



So it happened that " on the 25th of August," to 

 use Leeuwenhoek's own words, he " saw in a leaden 

 gutter at the fore part of my house, for the length of 

 about five feet and the breadth of seven inches, a settle- 

 ment of rain-water which appeared of a red colour. . . . 

 I took a drop of this water," he continues, " which 

 I placed before the microscope, and in it I discovered 



