Dec., 1892. 
MICROSCOPIC POND-LIFE. 
265 
MICROSCOPIC POND-LIFE.* 
Ever since I began to use the microscope I have been fond 
of studying the minute forms of pond-life, and of taking their 
portraits. I showed a series of these at the Soiree of the 
Midland Union of Natural History Societies, held at Oswestry 
last August, and there may be one or two points of sufficient 
interest in the lecture, apart from the pictures which are 
really the lecture, for me to give a short account of it in the 
pages of this journal. 
“ Microscopic Pond-life ” is a subject which is no doubt 
familiar to most, and to me one of the fascinating things in 
these tiny “ organisms ” is to notice, as we start from the 
lowest forms and gradually go higher in the scale, the appear¬ 
ance one by one of the different “ organs,” all of which are 
indispensable to the higher animals. 
We see first how good a name is “ organism,” for every 
animal is “ organised ; ” that is, has some parts of it planned 
and made for a special purpose. It cannot be a living 
creature without organs—or, at least, an organ ; for it is 
astonishing with how few organs life can be carried on. The 
one organ which cannot be done without is a heart. Even 
the Amoeba, which has no mouth, feet, nor digestive organs, 
has a heart. Of course, it is a very simple heart, and, no 
doubt for this reason, some kind people have given it a long 
name—they call it a contractile vesicle. No one not in the 
secret would correctly name the organ which, next to the 
heart, seems most useful to the carrying on of the processes 
of life. He would be sure to say a mouth, or feet, or some¬ 
thing like that. But it is a skeleton ; that is, a hard part, for 
stiffening out and.protecting the fragile body of the creature. 
A little above the Amoeba in complexity of organisation, but 
closely allied to it, comes the Actinosphaerium. This is a 
unicellular animal, of course, but it has a sort of granular 
body ; and instead of distending and contracting its whole 
body, as the Amoeba does, it sends out fine threads or rays, 
which answer some purposes of feet, but which may be with¬ 
drawn into the body of the animal. There is no more 
“ common object of the microscope” than a slide of foramini- 
fera, and everybody knows that they are practically Amoebae 
with shells or skeletons. They are all marine, and, as far as 
I know, no one has yet recorded a fresh water example. 
* Notes from a lecture delivered at the Midland Union of 
Natural History Societies’ Soiree, held at The Quinta, near Oswestry, 
August 23rd, 1892. 
