16 Introduction 



With such crude instruments as the early micro- 



ts a ailil a >mmand they began to explore the world 

 .in. They looked into the minute structure of 

 ■.•thing— forms of crystals, structure of tissues, 

 s of insects, hairs and fibers, and, above all else, 

 micro-organisms of the water. These, living in a 

 rent medium, needed only to be lifted in a drop 

 i >f water to be ready for observation. At once the early 

 mieroscopists became most ardent explorers of the 

 ■ r. They found every ditch and stagnant pool 

 dng with forms, new and wonderful and strange. 

 ften found each drop of water inhabited. They 

 gained a new conception of the world's fulness of life 

 and one of the greatest of them Roesel von Rosenhof, 

 expressed in the title of his book, "Insekten Belusti- 

 gung"* the pleasure they all felt in their work. It was 

 the joy of pioneering. Little wonder that during a 

 1« >ng period of exploration microscopy became an end 

 in it self. Who that has used a microscope has not been 

 mated on first acquaintance with the dainty ele- 

 e and b< tauty of the desmids, the exquisite sculptur- 

 ing of diatom shells, the all-revealing transparency of 

 the daphnias, etc., and who has not thereby gained a 

 appreciation of the ancient saying, Natura maxime 

 miranda in minimis.} 



Am< >ng these pioneers there were great naturalists — - 

 mmerdam and Leeuwenhoek in Holland, the latter, 

 the maker of his own lenses; Malpighi and Redi in 

 I tcily; Reaumer and Trembly in France; the above 

 mentioned, Roesel, a German, who was a painter of 

 miniatures; and many others. These have left us 

 faithful records of what they saw, in descriptions and 

 res that in many biological fields are of more than 

 historical importance. These laid the foundations of 



:ng = delight. 

 [Nature is most wonderful in little things. 



