16 THE UNIVERSE. 



times they make them entirely disappear. They scatter 

 them, wekl them together, or entwine them like the locks 

 of a Gorgon. 



The microscopic world also has its extremes. There 

 is as wide a distance between the bulk of its tiniest 

 representative, the crepuscular monad, and that of one of 

 its largest, the hooded Colpodos, as there is between a 

 beetle and an elejDliant. 



Nothing is more marvellous than the organization of 

 these invisible beings, and if attentive observations had 

 not placed the facts beyond doubt, men might have been 

 tempted to think that the accounts given by naturalists 

 were pure fiction or else audacious falsehoods. 



The profusion of vital apparatus in the Microzoa some- 

 times exceeds even to a great extent that which is seen in 

 large animals. There are some which possess fifteen to 

 twenty stomachs, or even more. In addition there is, in 

 some Infusoria, a curious mechanism appended to this 

 superabundance of organs — one of the stomachs being 

 furnished with teeth of extreme delicacy, Avhich can be 

 seen through the transparent body moving and crushing 

 the food. 



Notwithstanding the extreme minuteness of these crea- 

 tures, which have remained unknown through so many, 

 many ages, nature has expended the most watchful care 

 upon them. Some of them are sheltered beneath a 

 calcareous cuirass; and in many the protecting carapace 

 is indestructible, and of the nature of our gun-flint, being 

 formed of silex. 



According to Ehrenberg some of the Infusoria have 

 even eyes, which at times present the appearance of 

 flaming red pupils. If we could suppose organs of such 

 tenuity possessing a field of vision large enough to allow 



