Paesons : Hints on Natural History Collecting. 89 



for busy people, that it is not necessary to spread them out to press 

 at the time of gathering ; they may be dried as they are, and will 

 recover their freshness when moistened after the lapse of years. 

 Another circumstance which renders the study of the lowest forms of 

 animal and vegetable life especially interesting and instructive is, 

 that owing to the simplicity of their parts and the transparency of 

 their structures, it is possible to gain from them a deeper insight 

 into the mysterious processes of life than can be readily obtained in 

 more complex beings. Thus, to attain an accurate knowledge of the 

 anatomy of the human body is the work of years, but that of a Eotifer 

 or an Infusorium may be seen at a glance. The fresh-water algse 

 among plants, and the Crustacea and Annelida among animals, are 

 examples of orders everywhere to be met with^ with forms sometimes 

 of great beauty, and life histories of wonderful interest, which how- 

 ever are entirely neglected by amateur botanists and zoologists, or 

 only worked at in a desultory manner as "microscopic material." 



Microscopic observers may, I think, be divided into two well- 

 marked classes — those who look upon the animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral kingdom as yielding " objects for the microscope," and those 

 who look upon the microscope as an instrument for the investigation 

 of animals, plants, and minerals. The first class use it as a toy, the 

 second as a tool. I need hardly say that it is in the latter light that 

 I would have you regard it. The microscope is indeed essential in 

 the study of the smaller invertebrate animals and cryptogamic plants, 

 and this is no doubt one reason why these are neglected : for, besides 

 that microscopic manipulation and the mounting of objects require 

 some amount of time and skill, there are many working-men 

 naturalists who do not possess a microscope. To such I would say, 

 get one ; a really useful microscope can now be bought for £5 or £6, 

 and fourpence a-day put by for a year to buy a microscope will yield 

 far more permanent enjoyment than if spent on beer and tobacco. 

 Few respectable households are without a piano, and a piano costs 

 four times as much as a microscope. A few hints on the purchase of 

 a microscope may perhaps be useful. The popular idea concerning a 

 microscope is that its value depends upon how much it will magnify, 

 and that the bigger the microscope the more it will magnify. Both 

 these notions are quite wrong. The magnifying power of a micro- 

 scope depends upon the glasses, and not on the size of the brass 

 stand ; and the lower powers are not only much easier and satisfactory 

 to work with than the high ones, but practically more useful. For 

 the resolving of difficult test objects we must have object glasses 



