hundreds and thousands. The few which I have
presented to your notice have been selected
not for their rarity, but for their commonness,
as also because they are but briefly
mentioned, when at all, in the popular
treatises on the microscope. They require
no extreme magnifying power to
demonstrate their peculiarities, but are clearly
recognisable and distinguishable, and their
habits may be watched with a three-and-a-
half guinea student's microscope. The
inquirer, looking out for them, cannot fail to
find them at the most casual search; they
swarm beneath his footsteps and float beside
his daily path. The aggregate number of
our neglected neighbours is not countless;
it is unimaginable; it is infinite. They lurk,
—and very droll ones too,—in the tufts of
moss on our cottage roofs; they are
compressed and coffined alive in the blighted
grain; they luxuriate and multiply in the
hollows of our drains; they are whirled about
in the clouds of dust which the keen March
wind sweeps round the corners of the streets.
They take possession of our food and drink;
they swarm in our very persons if encouraged
to do so by forgetfulness, neglect, and
uncleanliness,—videlicet, between teeth that are
never troubled by a brush. They help to
consolidate our marshes, and to fill up our
lakes. In fresh water, they abound
incredibly; in seas and oceans, their hosts
exceed all belief or imagination. So long as
these, our unseen neighbours, remain, were
every visible living creature swept from the
face of the earth, our globe would still
continue teeming with life on the most
gigantic scale.

It has been naturally asked what is the
use and the object of such innumerable
throngs of minutest creatures? It has been
ably answered, that these invisible
animalcules may be compared, in the great organic
world, to the minute capillaries in the microcosm
of the animal body; receiving organic
matter in its state of minutest subdivision,
and when in full career to escape from the
organic system, turning it back, by a new
route, towards the central and highest point
of that system. Animalcules are the
save-alls of organic matter. When a solid
particle, either animal or vegetable, is about to
leak away, by decay and resolution into its
elementary gases, it is caught up by some
animalcule, of whose frame it becomes a
portion, to be devoured successively by larger
rapacious infusoria, who themselves become
the prey of insects or small fish. In this
way, the trembling speck which can scarcely
boast an outline to its form, helps to build
up the frame and mass of the colossal whale.

But further; animalcules act as purifiers
and scavengers of the highest importance.
We can see that, but for them, every stagnant
pool must become a centre of rottenness,
which would fester and spread, till pestilence
triumphant laid more highly organised beings
prostrate in death. We little think, in
general, what a complicated army of tiny
officials are constantly employed, night and
day, summer and winter, at the endless work
of filtering our waters, clearing away our
offal, and rendering the breeze we are about
to inhale, more refreshing and salutary to
our lungs. Whether they be motile plants
or whether they be animals, they are equally
efficient in absorbing and retaining nutriment
for their own structure and growth from
what would be prejudicial and even fatal to us.
But suppose pools, marshes, lakes, and seas to
be utterly untenanted by a microscopic fauna,
and they must become the pools, marshes,
lakes, and seas of unceasing corruption, in
consequence of the fresh matter unceasingly
brought down to them by their tributaries.
We know that production and reproduction,
decomposition and new growth, continual
death and as continual regeneration, is the
great alternating law of nature. It would
appear that animalcules occupy the turning-
point of existence. They seize upon dissolution
at its final stage; and where they first
are present, the series of life begins. They,
the shrill trebles in the grand chorus of
Nature, shout with a voice of unison, "O
Lord, how manifold are thy works; in
wisdom hast thou made them All; the earth is
full of thy riches. So is the great and wide
sea also; wherein are things creeping
innumerable, both small and great beasts."

FEATS AT THE FERRY.

IN this or that Hall of Arms, or sporting
Arena in London, we have sometimes been
witnesses of athletic entertainments stated to
be prevalent in the north country, and we
must confess that they struck us as being
wearisome to the last degree: the sawdusted
circle, the gas-lights, and the roar of the
streets without, were circumstances perhaps
too adverse for the proper appreciation of
pastoral gymnastics; but certainly the heroes
of Cumberland and Westmoreland gained
little, as it seemed to us, by contrast even
with the Whitechapel or Finsbury pets of
the legitimate ring. Had we never known
the beautiful sister counties save by report,
we should have lived and died at St. John's
Wood in the belief that their favourite sport
was brutal and debasing, and the champions
of their valleys mercenary gladiators—which
would have been a great mistake indeed.
That by reason of the frequency of wrestling
meetings in the north, and of the increased
value of the prizes, there are now a distinct
race of professionals who live by the gladiatorial
exercise of their thews and sinews, is
quite true; it is very possible that amongst
these men the bubble reputation may be held
in less repute than a ten-pound note, and
that various little arrangements may be made
beforehand to the advantage of these privy
purses and to the prejudice of honest and fair