H 
LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
CHAPTER II. 
LIFE'S SIMPLEST CHILDREN : HOW THEY LIVE, AND 
MOVE, AND BUILD. 
" The very meanest things are made supreme 
With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 
But moves a bright and million-peopled land, 
And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 
For love, though blind himself, a curious eye 
Hath lent me, to behold the heart of things, 
And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, 
Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, 
Delight, from many a nameless covert sly, 
Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings. 
Laman Blanchard, 
>HO are Life's simplest children, 
and where are they to be found ? 
Let us try to answer the second 
question first, and rubbing the 
scales from off our eyes, peer into 
the hidden secrets of nature ; and 
when we ha^e tracked to their 
home the tiny beginnings of life, 
we will examine them and try to 
understand how they live. 
How calm, and lovely, and 
still the sea looks on a warm, 
sunny, breezeless day of summer, 
and how happy we can imagine 
the myriads of creatures to be 
that float in its waters ! We know many of them 
