THE MINUTE. 



dow, though all might not appear in the live-box 

 at one time. However, the point is, these and 

 hundreds of others are easily obtainable, and can- 

 not fail to delight the observer. The variety is 

 almost endless. 



Scarcely anything more strikes the mind with 

 wonder than, after having been occupied for 

 hours, perhaps, in watching the movements and 

 marking the forms of these and similar creatures, 

 till one has become quite familiar with them, sud- 

 denly to remove the eye from the instrument, and 

 taking the cell from the stage, look at it with the 

 naked eye. Is this what we have been looking at? 

 This quarter-inch of specks, is this the field full of 

 busy life? are here the scores of active creatures 

 feeding, watching, preying, escaping, swimming, 

 creeping, dancing, revolving, breeding? Are they 

 here? Where? Here is nothing, absolutely noth- 

 ing, but two or three minutest dots which the 

 straining sight but just catches now and then in 

 one particular light. 



Truly, the world which we are holding between 

 our finger and thumb — this world in a globule of 

 water — this world of rollicking, joyous, boisterous 

 fellows, that a pin's point would take up, is even 

 more wonderful than the shoals of whales that 

 wallow in Baffin's Kay, or the herds of elephants 

 that shake the earth in the forests of Ceylon. 

 Truly, the great God who made them is maximus 

 in minimis! 



165 



