424 EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



to pluck up one or more of the filamentous water-plants, 

 and introduce these into your vessel. 



Now, to examine such a collection, proceed as I am 

 abo'ut to show you. I hastily glance with the pocket- lens 

 over the foliage, and selecting such filaments as seem the 

 most loaded with dirty floccose matter, I pluck off with 

 pliers one or two, together with one or two of the cleaner 

 ones that are higher up on the plant, nearer the growing 

 point. Having laid these on the lower glass of the live- 

 box, I take up with the tip of a fine capillary tube, or a 

 pipette, a minute quantity of the water at the bottom, 

 which flows in as you see, carrying a few granules of 

 the sediment. This drop I discharge upon the glass 

 of the live-box, put on the cover, and place the whole 

 on the stage of the microscope. 



First let us use a low power one hundred diameters 

 or so in order to take a general glance at what we have 

 got. Here is an array of life, indeed! Motion arrests the 

 eye everywhere. "The glittering swift and the flabby 

 slow" are alike here; clear crystal globules revolve gid- 

 dily on their axes ; tiny points leap hither and thither like 

 nimble fleas; long forms are twisting to and fro; busy lit- 

 tle creatures are regularly quartering the hunting- ground, 

 grubbing with an earnest devotedness among the sediment, 

 as they march up the stems; here are vases with translu- 

 cent bodies protruding from the mouths; here are beaute- 

 ous bells, set at the end of tall threads, ever lengthening 

 and shortening; here are maelstroms in miniature, and 

 tempests in far less than a teapot; rival and interfering 

 currents are whirling round and round, and making series 

 of concentric circles among the granules. Surely here is 

 material for our study. 



