LIFE IN A DROP OF WATER. 159 



organisms. Suppose he has nipped off the growing ter- 

 minal bud of some Myriophyllum or Nitella, and, having a 

 little broken it down with the point of a needle, has placed 

 it in the animalcule-box of the instrument, with a small 

 quantity of the water in which it grew, selected from the 

 sediment of the pool-bottom. The amount of life at first 

 is bewildering ; motion is in every part of the field ; 

 hundreds and thousands of pellucid bodies are darting 

 across, making a mazy confusion of lines. Some are mere 

 immensurable points without apparent form or diameter ; 

 others are definable and of exceedingly various shapes. 

 Aggregations of little transparent pears,* clinging together 

 by their stalks so as to form balls, go revolving merrily 

 through their waste of waters. Presently one of the pears 

 severs its connexion with the family, and sets out on a 

 voyage on its own individual responsibility ; then another 

 parts company ; and you see that there are plenty more 

 of the same sort, roving singly as well as in clusters ; 

 little tops of clear jelly with a few specks in the interior. 

 Here comes rolling by, with majestic slowness, a globe of 

 glass, with sixteen emeralds imbedded in its substance, 

 symmetrically arranged,-)* each emerald carrying a tiny 

 ruby at one end ; a most charming group. Elegant 

 forms,}; resembling fishes, or battledores, or poplar-leaves, 

 for they are of many kinds, all of a rich opaque green 

 hue, with a large transparent orange-coloured spot, wriggle 

 sluggishly by, the leaves now and then rolling themselves 

 up spirally, and progressing in a cork-screw fashion. 

 * Uvella. f Eudorina. + Euglena. 



