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half inclined to throwaway the water ; but as I was certain that I had 
seen something in it two minutes before, I corked up the bottle and 
took it home. When I next looked at it, there was the little brown 
creature flying about as wildly as ever. I soon found out, now, that 
I had caught a very tiny cephalopod — something like an octopus, 
and with a pipette I fished it out and dropped it into a glass cell. At 
least I dropped the water from the pipette into the cell ; but the 
animal itself had vanished again; I could not see it either in the bottle, 
or the cell. I was not going to be tricked again ; so I pushed the cell 
under the Microscope, and there was my prize, motionless, but for 
its panting, and watching me, as it were, up the Microscope, with its 
big blue- green eyes. It was almost colourless, and was dotted at wide 
intervals with very minute black spots, set quincunx fashion — spots 
absolutely invisible to the sharpest unaided sight. 
As I looked it began to blush — to blush faint orange, then deeper 
orange, then orange-brown ; a patch of colour here, another there, 
now running across one side of the body, now fading away again to 
appear on a tentacle ; till at last, as it recovered from its alarm, each 
black spot began to quiver with rapid expansions and contractions, 
and then to spread out in ever varying tints, till its wavering outlines 
had met the expansions of its neighbouring spots ; and the little 
creature, regaining its colour and its courage at the same moment, 
rushed off once more in a headlong course round the cell. 
I was the merest beginner when I saw this, but I had the good 
luck, knowing nothing whatever about it, and never having given the 
subject a thought, to see with my own eyes, how efiectually cuttle- 
fishes are protected by their loss of colour, and also to see how the loss 
takes place. 
hJo doubt the sea-side of our south-western coasts — I mean its 
creeks, not “ the thundering shores of Bude and Bos ” — is a paradise for 
microscopists ; but there is no need that we should travel so far afield. 
Our inland woods, our lanes and pastures will yield to us a thousand 
beauties and wonders. The scarlet pimpernel will show its glorious 
stamens, the flowers of the wound-wort glow like a costly exotic ; wild 
mignonette will rival in its fantastic shape the strangest orchid ; the 
humblest grass will lift a tuft of glistening crystals, the birch and 
salad burnet shake out their crimson tassels ; the Jungermanns will 
display their mimic volcanoes, the mosses unfold the delicate lacework 
of their dainty urns. But the time would fail me to name one tithe 
of those sources of wonder and delight that lie all around us ; and most 
of which, as in case of the Botifera, contain numberless points on 
which we are all happily ignorant, and therefore in the best of all 
possible conditions for deriving endless pleasure and instruction from 
them. Besides, my time and your patience must, I think, be drawing 
to a close ; I would then only once more suggest that we should not 
only explore for ourselves all these “ pastures new” — no matter how 
imperfectly — but that we should encourage those, who can be our most 
