IN" FEATHERS AND FUR. 349 
HOW ALL THESE THINGS WERE FOUND OUT 
If you don't know how it has been done, you may wonder how 
men found out all these facts that I've been telling you about 
insects, some of them not so big as the head of a pin. It has all 
been done by the help of the microscope ; an instrument as wonder- 
ful in revealing the small things in nature, as the telescope is in 
the great things. I want to tell you a few things that it shows us. 
If you think small people two or three inches high are amus- 
ing, what would you think of a little creature so small as barely to 
be seen by the naked eye ; so small indeed, that he and thousands 
of others have plenty of room to live, and grow, and travel around 
in a tiny puddle of water ? And what sort of a house w r ould you 
think such an atom of a thing could build ? What if I should tell 
you that he can build a brick house ; that he selects from the 
water in which he lives, the necessary materials, shapes them in a 
mold which he has in his body, and piles up a regular house for 
himself ? You can hardly believe it, but it is perfectly true. 
What do you think of creatures so tiny that a whole family 
can live in the cavities in a grain of sand? To your eye, a grain 
of sand looks perfectly round ; but these dots of creatures find 
comfortable caves to live in. How do you suppose they like it to 
be mixed up with water and other things, and walled up in a stone 
wall ? It's as bad to them as to be shut up in an enchanted palace, 
and worse, for no disenchanting words will let them out. 
The world of wonders opened to us by the microscope is 
stranger than all the tales of giants, genii, and enchantment you 
ever heard. Think — if you can — of atoms so small that whole 
colonies can live in one drop of water, and swim around as freely 
as whales in the ocean ; and that it would take many millions of 
them together to be as large as the head of a pin. Imagine these 
specks of life swimming around in the water, chasing other crea- 
tures smaller than themselves for food. They're almost too small 
to think of. You would never think of looking for beauty in these 
little creatures, but they are most exquisitely formed and colored. 
Many, not so large as the head of a pin, are as perfect and beauti- 
