CHAPTER XIV 
The Man with the Microscope 
I 
When we look at Charles Darwin’s picture and im¬ 
agine him bending that grave, kindly face over the 
microscope, we wonder whether he didn’t have to take 
his great bushy beard by the end and tie it to one ear 10 
get it out of the way! But beard or no beard, look into 
the microscope he did, and found wonders there greater 
than a crystal gazer ever saw. He looked at bugs and 
beetles, worms and flies, sea animals and land animals, 
plants, leaves and grasses. He learned the habits of 
creatures that creep and crawl and fly and run, and, as 
he watched, he put two and two together and discovered 
the Web of Life, the relation between all living things. 
He discovered how living things grow and adapt them¬ 
selves to changes of climate, why the duck has webbed 
feet and the lizard has eyes on the top of his head, why 
man alone of all creatures walks on two legs instead 
of four. 
Of course, Nature would not have told these secrets 
to Darwin had she not known him to be patient and kind 
and a lover of everything alive. He used to walk alone 
in the woods, watching the life about him; he went so 
quietly that once three young squirrels ran up his 
