148 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
and without rock; the moment the first dim "bronzy 
speck appears, 1 rub it off the glass, and so thwart the 
course of Nature. The fishes soon exhaust the water of 
its oxygen, and though the water attempts to renew its 
supplies by absorption from the atmosphere, the compen¬ 
sation is too slow, the fishes come gasping to the sur¬ 
face, and in a short while perish. 
Even then I learn something from their death, if I 
leave the vessel in the hands of Nature. Death has no 
sooner spread his black banner over my household gods 
than life of another kind arises to confound him, and 
the microscope reveals to me myriads of animals and 
plants, and organisms that seemingly occupy an inter¬ 
mediate place between the two great kingdoms, rioting 
upon the wreck that death has made. My half-dozen 
dead fishes have given birth to existences numerous as 
the stars in heaven, or as the sand upon the sea-shore, 
innumerable. While these devour the banquet death 
has spread for them, while forests of confervoid threads 
rise in silken tufts like microscopic savannahs, Nature is 
passing portions of the ichthyic debris through her 
laboratory, and the very source of life for which they 
pined and perished—oxygen—is poured in in large 
measure, and the corruption is quickly changed to sweet 
ness. Of the once sportive fishes some portions have 
become air, other portions have become water, but the 
chief of their bulk lives already in the vegetation which 
hides their grave, and the moving throng with which 
that vegetation is peopled. God's purpose in the work¬ 
ing of the laws in obedience to which these changes have 
taken place, is manifestly to keep ever true that balance 
