PEEFACE. 



To open the path to the myriad wonders of creation, 

 which, altogether unseen by the unassisted eye, are 

 made cognisable to sight by the aid of the micro- 

 scope, is the aim and scope of this volume. Great 

 and gorgeous as is the display of Divine power and 

 wisdom in the things that are seen of all, it may 

 safely be affirmed that a far more extensive prospect 

 of these glories lay unheeded and unknown, till the 

 optician's art revealed it. Like the work of some 

 mighty genie of Oriental fable, the brazen tube is 

 the key which unlocks a world of wonder and beauty 

 before invisible, which one who has once gazed upon 

 it can never forget, and never cease to admire. 



This volume contains but a gleaning : the author 

 has swept rapidly across the vast field of marvels, 

 snatching up a gem here and there, and culling one 

 and another of the brilliant blossoms of this flowery 

 region, to weave a specimen chaplet, a sample coronal, 

 which may tell of the good things behind. Yet the 

 selection has been so made as to leave untouched no 

 considerable area of the great field of Zoology which 

 is under the control of the microscope ; so that the 

 student who shall have verified for himself the obser- 

 vations here detailed, will be no longer a tyro in 



