The cilia may be seen vibrating over the
entire bodies of some animalcules, like a crop
of barley on the surface of a field waving in
the summer wind. Judge whether the
word smallest be anything more, as far as
any definite meaning is concerned, than a
good-natured concession to popular forms of
speech! We now know that the realms of
life are boundless, if not in magnitude, at
least in littleness. The alchymy of optical
skill has transmuted a phial of turbid fluid
into a golden treasury of facts and inferences.

It is vulgarly supposed that when things
cease to be visible to the naked eye, there is an
end to measurement; all further speculations
touching their magnitude,—granting things
invisible to have magnitude,—are superfluous
and a complete waste of time. When a
village dame clearly sees nothing on a given
patch of talc or glass,  even with her spectacles
astride her nose, she would consider it
madness were you to tell her that the proportions
of large and less still continue to exist within
that boundary, beyond her ken; while the
superlative least has never yet been found.
But look at this brackish drop of water,
which is part of an iron-ladleful I scooped up
the other day out of a ruined sanded-up
seaport, long deserted by human inhabitants.
It is a pearly globule, the bigness of a good
fat dewdrop, and clear, except that by looking
sharp you can perceive a few specks,
which are merely bits of dirt and rubbish.
I let my spherical little fish-pond fall
gently on a thin strip of glass, and submit it
to the microscope. In the small quantity of
saline fluid which will hang to the tip of a
common goosequill, I have captured a multitude
of wild creatures here confined, whose
bulk and stature vary as much as those of
the birds and beasts in Wombwell's
menagerie.

The largest live-lion which I see as yet, has
the semblance of a great garden-slug, but is
flatter and broader. He glides gracefully
along, searching with his mouth to the right
and left for—he best knows what. Now he
turns himself, and swims sidewise, as to
give me a capital profile view of his person.
He is marvellously lean,—not a bit of fat
about him,—and so transparent that I can
behold, through him, every object over which
he passes. He is not at all disgusting in his
looks, and is free from every symptom of
sliminess. His surface glances with pearly
hues, not from any defective achromatism of
my objectives,—in plain English, from any
fault of my glasses,—but, from the extreme
thinness of his outer coat, as is the case in
soap-bubbles and films on water. He glides
on his way in pleased content, and is soon
out of our field of view. We might follow him
by hitching the slide on which the drop of
salt water rests, but let him gang his gait;
for, enter a band of waltzers, not keeping
time, nor adhering very strictly to any set
figure. They make me giddy to look at them
as  they whirl and spin. To avoid being
utterly bewildered, I will fix my attention on
the movements of a single individual. The
present ballet-girl, a coryphée who dances in
the front rank, has a body like a short-horn
carrot, only pellucid as crystal; at her root
end she has a pointed radicle, tip, or moveable
peg. Where the carrot leaves would
sprout, there is a diadem of long rays, which
vibrate rapidly, but not too rapidly to be
visible. By these evidently the dancer rises
and sinks, revolves and rolls; they are
probably the moustache which surrounds her
mouth, and also the knife and fork with
which she eats her dinner, as well as the
fingers she catches it with. She is out of
sight, and—whisk!—who was that who ran
across the room? swift as a swallow, but
large and seemingly spherical? There!
It stops for one instant, and I am in
the presence, I suppose, of one of the
rotifers, or wheel-animalcules, but can hardly
tell from such a passing glance. I think I
saw the wheels twisting about its head, and
am sure I saw a yellowish meal safely stored
in its portly paunch. Perhaps it is Noteus
quadricornis; what do I know?—as the
French say when a knotty point puzzles
their brains. Another smaller wheeler—it
does not follow that he is more juvenile—
throws himself into the ring, like Mr. Merriment,
with a sudden summerset. He
pirouettes a moment, in which feat he is aided
by his bell-shaped proportions, and then darts
off to another station with a flea-like skip,
pirouettes again, leaps aside, and disappears.
He favours us with a very short performance,
and is continuing his part behind the scenes.
I shift the glass slide a little bit, and
fall upon a shower of shooting stars. They
flash across the field in all directions.
They are white, clear, and roundish; that is
all I can see, for they are excessively quick
and extremely small. But if extreme rapidity
perplexes, deliberately movements are
sometimes ludicrous.  There's a droll creature, who
gives you time to look at him. He walks
into the circus thus: he makes a bow till he
touches the floor with his head. He then
stands on his head and makes another bow in
the same direction, till he touches the floor with
his foot or feet; for his figure is altogether
that of a worthy peasant ready-dressed to run
a race in a sack. His march, is that of a recruit
cautiously practising to the sober measure of
the Dead March in Saul. But is he only
hoaxing us, after all?—masking his real
character? This certainly must be his brother,
who creeps in hurriedly on his belly, never
leaving hold of the ground with his tail
during the whole of his course. What
versatility? I begin to suspect he is only
the great slug in another disguise; and
yet, no, it cannot be possible? But let us
not be in too great a hurry about what is
possible. How hungry he is. He has seized some
unfortunate victim, and shakes it as a terrier