Animalcules in tJie Winter. 119 



scopist will find no difficulty in supplying his winter evenings 

 with materials for observation. Furnished with an ordinary 

 ring-net of muslin and a wide-mouthed bottle, he has only to 

 proceed to the nearest pond (no matter if the ground be covered 

 with snow, or the pond frozen over, so long as the ice is 

 breakable) and there fish up from the bottom a few of the dead 

 leaves, bits of pond- weeds or any similar remnants of vegeta- 

 tion, and having thus half filled his bottle with most worthless- 

 looking scraps, let him fill it up with the pond water, and 

 return in full confidence that he has not laboured in vain. 

 Arrived at home, let him immediately procure three large tea- 

 cups, into one of which, having well shaken his bottle, he must 

 pour its fluid contents and allow it to stand for one minute, so 

 that the thickest sediment may subside. At the end of one 

 minute let him pour two thirds of the contents of the first cup 

 into the second, and there allow it to stand for two minutes for 

 the subsidence of its sediment, and then without delay, without 

 shaking it, pour half of the contents of the second cup into the 

 third. The cups may now be left to stand till the supra-natant 

 water is clear, and the animalcules have all settled to the 

 bottom. 



On taking up with a dipping-tube a little of the sediment 

 thus deposited, and submitting it to microscopical examination 

 in a live-box, or upon a glass slide covered with a plate of thin 

 glass, we have never yet been disappointed at the result. The 

 sediment of our ponds and ditches seems indeed in winter 

 time to be one vast nursery, in which are cradled all the families 

 of microscopic life, the very metropolis of the race ; and it is 

 only by seeking them in this their retirement, that many in- 

 teresting forms are obtainable with any degree of certainty. 



Let us, however, place upon a slide a few drops of the 

 deposit from our second tea-cup, procured, in the manner above 

 described, from the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens, at this 

 moment (January 2nd) partially frozen over, and covering them 

 with a circle of thin glass, examine them with a -g-inch objec- 

 tive. The peculiar aspect of the contents of our slide, as com- 

 pared with the well-known products of the pond in summer 

 time, is at once strikingly evident — the colours of decay pre- 

 dominate throughout, all wears the livery of the sere and 

 yellow leaf — the very Confervas seem as if they had been 

 bleached with chlorine, and a few ragged masses of semi- 

 decomposed vegetable tissue tangled in slimypatches constitute, 

 as a painter wo aid say, the still life of the picture. And yet 

 amid the desolation of the scene, the concourse of actors is 

 quite as great as the dimensions of the stage will permit, 

 and we at once perceive that a very pretty pantomime is in 

 process of performance. Naviculce of every form and size are 



