38 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
A Monocular Muse. 
BY MAEY H. WHEEIjEB. 
A Kotifer, deep in an eddy-swept pool, 
By the leaf-shaded shore of a rivulet cool. 
Contentedly lived in her own minute style, 
Invisible. voiceless, but active the while. 
And starlight and moonlight, and sunshine and storm. 
Lent their varying hues to her transparent form. 
And the o'erhanging branches dropped green shadows down 
On the flickering sands of the water bed brown. 
The minnows above her oft swam to and fro. 
And naviculae sailed o'er the pebbles below. 
For the Spring time had come with its warmth and its light, 
And the cells of the desmids were verdant and bright- 
Closterium segments divided anew, 
And the horns of the fair scenedesmus grew. 
And the rayed rhizopoda clung lightly between 
The filaments of the spirogyra green— 
For the season had sent her primordial thrill 
Through all protoplasm and chlorophyll. 
And the Rotifer, glad in her limpid retreat, 
"Wheeled through the fair water on cilia fleet. 
But a Student, whose nerve cells and brain matter gray- 
Were attuned to the touch of the sun's vernal ray. 
Came, wandering over the vivified sod. 
To explore this fair pool with his bottle and rod 
And he gathered spores, larvEe, and desmids a few 
Some diatoms fresh, and the Eotifer too. 
Transferred to the slide of a microscope stage. 
And held by a cover-glass close in her cage, 
Did the Rotifer sigh for her home in the pool. 
And for freedom to roam through its water ways cool ? 
In the close compressed water and unchanging glare. 
Did she long for green shadows and free-flowing air? 
Oh, no, she exhibited no such emotion, 
But by wheeling and turning soon gave us a notion 
She was rather enjoying the new situation. 
Though too busy to rest from her old occupation. 
And we said it was better this short life to yield 
To the great cause of science, in microscope fleld. 
Than to live its few days out unseen and unknown 
In ever so pleasant a pool of her own. 
Giving this as the fruit of our deep cogitations 
The Student we left to his long lucubrations. 
Pittsfield, N. H., March, 1881. 
