MICROSCOnCAL DRAWING. 1S5 



of course, of no use to try to push it to the required 

 spot; the attempt only alarmed the little creature, and 

 made it dart hither and thither ; I could only wait 

 patiently its wayward will. When it came, perhaps 

 it would be with the wrong side presented towards 

 me, or the part which I wanted would be turned to 

 one side, or in some way altered from its ibrmer 

 position. And very often indeed, just as I had got 

 my glass to the focus, and my eye to the glass, after wait- 

 ing perhaps for a quarter of an hour, — before I could 

 get a glance with sufficient distinctness to impress an 

 image on my eye for delineation, the fish would dart 

 over to the other side, and leave me to exercise 

 patience for another quarter. 



This is the perpetual experience of those who draw 

 living animals with the microscope. The camera 

 lucida is an admirable aid for motionless forms, but it 

 is powerless for such as are agile and fitful. Nor is 

 the case of those minute creatures that are viewed 

 through the compound microscope at all better than 

 that of my Pipe-fish watched through a lens held in 

 the fingers. In order to see it to advantage, you must 

 allow your Zoophyte or Annelide space sufficient to 

 expand or move in ; when, if it be a lively species, 

 probably, just as you have got it steady enough to 

 delineate the first two or three lines, away it suddenly 

 starts, its position is quite changed, the relation of its 

 parts to your eye is altered, or perhaps it shoots clean 

 off, out of the field of vision. 



