150 ' THE MINUTE. 



called " low forms " of organic life are exceedingly simple 

 in their structure. There is, I say, error here ; the mi- 

 croscope is daily revealing the fact, that in such beings 

 the tissues that had been too hastily thought simple and 

 almost homogeneous are really complex, and that systems 

 of organs of the most elaborate character are present, 

 which had been altogether overlooked and unsuspected. 



What is more interesting than an examination, by means 

 of a first-rate microscope, of a tiny atom, that inhabits 

 almost every clear ditch, — the Melicerta ? The smallest 

 point that you could make with the finest steel-pen would 

 be too coarse and large to represent its natural dimen- 

 sions ; yet it inhabits a snug little house of its own con- 

 struction, which it has built up stone by stone, cementing 

 each with perfect symmetry, and with all the skill of an 

 accomplished mason, as it proceeded. It collects the 

 material for its mortar, and mingles it; it collects the 

 material for its bricks, and moulds them ; and this with a 

 precision only equalled by the skill with which it lays 

 them when they are made. As might be supposed, with 

 such duties to perform, the little animal is furnished with 

 an apparatus quite unique, a set of machinery, to which, 

 if we searched through the whole range of beasts, birds, 

 reptiles, and fishes, and then, by way of supplement, 

 examined the five hundred thousand species of insects to 

 boot, — we should find no parallel. 



The whole apparatus is exquisitely beautiful. The 

 head of the pellucid and colourless animal unfolds into 

 a broad transparent disk, the edge of which is moulded 



