4 MINUTE MARVELS OF NATURE 



equivalent ; of which I will speak in a later 

 chapter. 



Almost all damp situations and standing waters, 

 such as rain-water cisterns, drinking-troughs, wet 

 ditches, ponds, &c., will provide examples of 

 minute algae, or the earlier forms of plant life. 

 And these, like the gret-n film on the fence, will 

 be mostly unicellular plants each microscopic cell 

 constituting an individual plant, which eventually 

 divides into two or four similar cells, with the 

 same power of division (see Fig. i). 



Sometimes the newly formed cells have long 

 cilia, with which they swim freely about in water ; 

 and stagnant ponds often owe their green hue to 

 myriads of these active green cells swimming 

 gaily about within them. When shown under the 

 microscope, perhaps the last thought that would 

 occur to the inexperienced observer would be that 

 these wonderful little organisms are plants at all ; 

 and as there are large numbers of lowly plant 

 forms that can move about in water, and are 

 almost invariably found in company with minute 

 animalcules similarly endowed, even experts are 

 often puzzled to decide to which kingdom the 

 tiny living forms belong. So it comes about that 

 many of these organisms have been bandied about 

 by learned scientists from the Animal to the 

 Vegetable Kingdom and back again, until the 



