INFUSORIAL ANIMALCULES. 3 



examples of perfect harmony and proportion. Who can 

 behold these hollow living globes, revolving and disporting 

 themselves in their native element, with as much liberty 

 and pleasure as the mightiest monster of the deep : and, 

 to carry our views a step further, to speak in detail of 

 series of globes, one within another, alike inhabited, and 

 their occupants alike participating in the same enjoyment 

 who can behold such evidences of creative wisdom, and 

 not exclaim with the Psalmist, " How wonderful are thy 

 works, O Lord, sought out of all them that have pleasure 

 therein !" 



Again, take an example from the most minute of living 

 beings to which our knowledge at present extends, such 

 as the Monas crepuseulum (see Part II.), and compute the 

 number which could occupy the bulk of a single grain 

 of mustard seed, the diameter of which does not exceed 

 the tenth of an inch : it is hardly conceivable that within 

 that narrow space eight millions of active living creatures 

 can exist, all richly endowed with the organs and faculties 

 (as hereinafter fully described) of animal life ! Such, 

 however, is the astonishing fact. Again, to take an 

 example from those families of Infusoria, who posses the 

 power of changing their forms at pleasure, and yet confine 

 it to the drawings of the first plate (although the second 

 would furnish protean phenomena of a more extraordinary 

 character), take the figures of the family Astasiaea (groups 

 68 to 82), and you have creatures capable of assuming all 

 the various forms there depicted, in the short interval of a 

 few seconds, and that under the observer's eye. In the 

 beautiful little creatures of the genus Euglena, you may 

 also perceive a distinct visual organ, by which they can 



B 2 



