LITERARY WORK IN LONDON. 223 



a.m. next morning, walking to the Hampstead Ponds for 

 dirty water which might prove to contain sparks of life, 

 leaping, twinkling, and kicking, under the microscope. 



Almost immediately he began to correspond with the 

 leaders of microscopic science at that time, with John 

 Quekett and with Bowerbank, neither of whom, however, 

 had given any special attention to the Rotifer a. He pre- 

 sently fixed in his garden a set of stagnant open pans or 

 reservoirs for infusoria, which, from the prevalence of 

 cholera at the time, were looked upon with great suspicion 

 by the neighbours. In the midst of all this, and during the 

 very thrilling examination of three separate stagnations of 

 hempseed, poppy seed, and hollyhock seed, his wife pre- 

 sented him with a child, a helpless and unwelcome appari- 

 tion, whose arrival is marked in the parental diary in the 

 following manner : — " E. delivered of a son. Received 

 green swallow from Jamaica." Two ephemeral vitalities, 

 indeed, and yet, strange to say, both exist ! The one 

 stands for ever behind a pane of glass in the Natural 

 History Museum at South Kensington ; the other, whom 

 the green swallow will doubtless survive, is he who now 

 puts together these deciduous pages. 



The absorbing devotion to the microscope, which now 

 began to be the dominant passion of Philip Gosse's life 

 was distinctly unfavourable to the prosecution of paying 

 work. During the second half of 1849 ne produced com- 

 paratively little of a marketable character, although at no 

 time of his life was he engaged more closely or on labour 

 which demanded more intellectual force. But what he 

 was doing was noted with full appreciation in the scientific 

 world, and he was regarded with greater seriousness than 

 ever before. On November 14, upon Bowerbank's pro- 

 position, he was elected a member of the Microscopical 

 Society, at whose meetings he forthwith became a regular 



