does a rat. Now he is tugging away at some
microscopic oyster, which will not be torn
from its rock. A globular creature rolls
before him; he opens wide his mouth, or the
top of his sack; the bolus is somewhat of
the biggest, but down it goes. He gives a
gulp or two, shrugs his shoulders to make all
right, and you can see the new morsel
descend to his digestive apparatus. Now he
hunts the ground for more, like a staunch
hound upon a doubtful scent; and now he
pecks about, tossing his head, like a turkey
gobbling mast in a beech-and-oak-tree wood.
Perhaps, when he has at last got his fill, he
too will take to bowing, in evidence of his
amiable disposition. Who and what is he?
Blank Rotifer, Esquire, I guess. But do you
think I know, even by sight, every creature
I have circumvented in my drop? Of the
rotifers alone there are Heaven only knows
how many species.

Besides the stars of the company, there
are plenty of second and third-rate
performers, who glide in and out modestly
enough, keeping up the by-play of the
scene; while others, standing stock-still,
make up parts of the fixed tableau. Amongst
the former are those little things, of various
size, with a general resemblance to a weaver's
shuttle, some with a single hole in the middle,
others with two holes, one at each end; and
others with three perforations visible, which
slide slowly backwards and forwards without
any evident object, sometimes knocking
against each other, as if they were playing at
blindman's buff with every one of the party
blinded. They are diatomaceæ, naviculæ,
what-nots; some say they are animals, while
the dons will have it they are only plants.
I should like to plead for the animality of
that neat little canoe-like fellow, who feels
his way before him with a long sharp flexible
bristle as he sails along. All this is in the
water; but, by a touch at the fine adjustment,
so as to shift the focus a shade, we catch the
surface of the drop, and on it behold a
floating emerald with a circlet of bristling
rays surrounding it. You have just time to
look at it steadily, and lo! it skips from side
to side. Its radiating fringe is a set of agile
feet and legs, with which it cuts capers on its
briny spring-board.

But the quantity of saline liquid in our
little reservoir is sensibly diminished by
evaporation; it is low- water here, independent
of the moon's age. I could easily create
a bumping spring-tide by a supply introduced
on the tip of a quill tooth-pick; but we will
leave things to take their course. The plot
thickens; all our characters crowd the stage
together in alarm at the scantiness of their
native element. Excitement gains ground; it
is a water-riot; it is the last scene of Gustavus
the Third; it is the market chorus of
Masaniello, minus the music, as far as we can
hear. By the way, there really exists music
unheard by the ears, as there are sights
unseen by the eyes, of humanity. Who will
take up the science of micracoustics practically,
so as to furnish us with a magnifying
ear-trumpet, which shall render the
conversation of lady-birds audible? But the
catastrophe of our drama approaches fast;
our grand pantomime attains the acme of
its interest. The indefatigable clowns,
demons, pantaloons, and columbines, are
stranded on shoals, which gradually grow
shallower and shallower, till dry land
appears; they flourish their cilia, wave their
bristles, contract and dilate their bag-like
bodies for a moment; and then all is dry and
still in death. Fancy a multitudinous caravan of
men, horses, camels, and negro-slaves,
all scorched up and withered in the Great
Desert by the burning breath of an arid
simoon. The tragedy is no more than what we
have just witnessed. The monads, the wheelers,
the volvoxes, and the creepy-crawlies lie,
flattened husks; some of them burst and
emptied by the final struggle, like fire-
balloons torn through a thicket of thorns.
The drought also makes manifest to sight
what was before unperceived; minute crystals
of salt, in pyramids, crosses, lozenges,
rhombs; and other sharp-pointed angular
shapes, rapidly appear on the field of battle,
sometimes thrusting their spear-heads into
the bodies of the slain, or entombing them
beneath a translucent mausoleum. The
graveyard of the departed animalcules is
profusely strewn with glittering gems. Here,
lies our gallant Noteus, the dashing cavalry
officer, with a sparkling rosette of brilliants
for his head-stone; there, reposes poor little
ensign Whirligig, with a shining cross at his
foot, and a polished stiletto of salt by his
side; further on, the remains of general Slug
are fairly crushed by a great Egyptian pyramid
built of hundreds of layers of thousands
of glassy bricks.

And these are amongst the Common Things
so much sought after now-o'-days, as if
they were distant or hard to find. The
clue to them lies in your own quicksightedness
and activity of mind; therefore it is
that ninety-nine out of every hundred men
and women quit the world without having
once beheld them. Do you wonder, now,
that I have spent more than half-an-hour
in watching the contents of this single drop
of water with which a bit of window-glass
has been smeared? The crystals alone,
without the animals, are a remarkable
spectacle; they are the rapid marshalling, in
perfect discipline, of hitherto straggling and
mutinous atoms. A hundred years ago, when
minute crystalline forms were a recent
discovery, the learned believed that the piquant
flavour of salt, and of vinegar especially, was
owing to the multitude of floating, oblong,
quadrangular salts, each of which, tapering
from its middle, has two exquisitely sharp
ends. The theory then held was, that saline
particles, striking upon the nerves of animals,