A HAPPY FAMILY. 
55 
larvae of all kinds,—some ravenous as wolves, some that 
do nothing but jerk themselves into spasms, others that 
wriggle and twist into all manner of inconceivable forms. 
Here is a cluster of perhaps a thousand of the larvae of 
the common gnat,—a lot of lively jerking imps, that 
seem as if their bodies were made of spiral springs, and 
that conduct themselves as if life had but two pleasures 
to sweeten it - one skipping like Spring-heeled Jack, the 
other hanging from the ceiling by the tail, as the 
American adventurer lately astonished us by his anti¬ 
podean perambulations. Indeed, all the aquatic larvae 
that I have here—numbering some sixty different kinds 
—are given to this same feat of suspending themselves 
by the tail from the surface of the water; for in that 
way only do they breathe, by means of the plumes, and 
rays, and prongs with which their tails are furnished. 
In other jars I have some pretty water-mites that are 
incessantly on the trot, not swimming or diving, but 
literally running hither and thither, as if at any depth 
and any where the water presented to their feet a solid 
surface. I have thousands of Cyclops, Monads, Vorti- 
cellas, wheel-animalcules, a few Hydras, and no end of 
common and rare infusoria, that nightly occupy me 
under the glare of the microscope-lamp, in exploring 
their inner and outer constructions, their actions and 
instincts, and the many marvellous indications they 
afford of the perfection of the economies in things ordi¬ 
narily invisible—the work of the same Hand from, which 
the worlds themselves were launched, and which sus¬ 
tains, without ceasing, the balance of huge incomprehen¬ 
sible forces. 
