Contents.
CHAPTER I.
MICROSCOPES AND THEIR MANAGEMENT.
PAGE
Powers that are most serviceable—Estimated by Focal length—Length of Body of Microscope and its Effects—Popular Errors about Great Magnification—Modes of Stating Magnifying Power—use of an "Erector"—Power of various Objectives with different Eye-pieces—Examination of Surface Markings—Methods of Illumination—Direct and Oblique Light—Stage Aperture—Dark-ground Illumination—Mode of Softening Light—Microscope Lamps—Care of the Eyes1
CHAPTER II.
JANUARY.
Visit to the Ponds—Confervæ—Spirogyra quinina—Vorticella—Common Rotifer—Three Divisions of Infusoria—Phytozoa—Protozoa—Rotifera—Tardigrada—Meaning of these Terms—Euglenæ—Distinction between Animals and Vegetables—Description of Vorticellæ—Dark-ground Illumination—Modes of producing it—The Nucleus of the Vorticella—Methods of Reproduction—Ciliated Protozoa—Wheel-bearers or Rotifers—Their Structure—The Common Rotifer—The young Rotifer seen inside the old one—an Internal Nursery—"Differentiation" and "Specialization"—Bisexuality of Rotifers—Their Zoological Position—Diversities in their Appearance—Structure of their Gizzard—Description of Rotifers10
CHAPTER III.
FEBRUARY.
Visit to Hampstead—Small ponds—Water-Fleas—Water-Beetle—Snails—Polyps—Hydra viridis—The Dipping-tube—A Glass Cell—The Hydra and its Prey—Chydorus Sphæricus and Canthocamptus, or Friends and their Escapes—Cothurnia—Polyp Buds—Catching Polyps—Mode of Viewing Them—Structure of Polyps—Sarcode—Polyps Stimulated by Light—Are they Conscious?—Tentacles and Poison Threads—Paramecium—Trachelius—Motions of Animalcules, whether Automatic or directed by a Will—Their Restless Character30
CHAPTER IV.
MARCH.
Paramecia—Effects of Sunlight—Pterodina patina—Curious Tail—Use of a Compressorium—Internal Structure of Pterodina—Metopidia—Trichodina pediculus—Cothurnia—Salpina—Its Three-sided Box—Protrusion of its Gizzard Mouth43
CHAPTER V.
APRIL.
The Beautiful Floscule—Mode of Seeking for Tubicolar Rotifers—Mode of Illuminating the Floscule—Difficulty of seeing the Transparent Tube—Protrusion of Long Hairs—Lobes—Gizzard—Hairy Lobes of Floscule not Rotatory Organs—Glass Troughs—Their Construction and Use—Movement of Globules in Lobes of Floscule—Chætonotus larus—Its mode of Swimming—Coleps hirtus—Devourer of Dead Entomostraca—Dead Rotifer and Vibriones—Theories of Fermentation and Putrefaction—Euplotes and Stylonichia—Fecundity of Stylonichia54
CHAPTER VI.
MAY.
Floscularia cornuta—Euchlanis triquetra—Melicerta ringens—Its Powers as Brickmaker, Architect, and Mason—Mode of Viewing the Melicerta—Use of Glass Cell—Habits of Melicerta—Curious Attitudes—Leave their Tubes at Death—Carchesium—Epistylis—Their Elegant Tree Forms—A Parasytic Epistylis like the "Old Man of the Sea"—Halteria and its Leaps—Aspidisca lynceus69
CHAPTER VII.
JUNE AND JULY.
Lindia torulosa—Œcistes crystallinus—A Professor of Deportment on Stilts—Philodina—Changes of Form and Habits—Structure of Gizzard in Philodina Family—Mr. Gosse's Description—Motions of Rotifers—Indications of a Will—Remarks on the Motions of Lower Creatures—Various Theories—Possibility of Reason—Reflex Actions—Brain of Insects—Consensual Actions—Applications of Physiological Reasoning to the Movements of Rotifers and Animalcules76
CHAPTER VIII.
AUGUST.
Mud Coloured by Worms—Their Retreat at Alarm—A Country Duck-Pond—Contents of its Scum—Cryptomonads—Their Means of Locomotion—A Triarthra (Three-limbed Rotifer)—The Brachion or Pitcher Rotifer—Its Striking Form—Enormous Gizzard—Ciliary Motion inside this Creature—Large Eye and Brain—Powerful Tail—Its Functions—Eggs86
CHAPTER IX.
SEPTEMBER.
Microscopic Value of Little Pools—Curious Facts in Appearance and Disappearance of Animalcules and Rotifers—Mode of Preserving them in a Glass Jar—Fragments of Melicerta Tube—Peculiar Shape of Pellets—Amphileptus—Scaridium longicaudum—A Long-tailed Rotifer—Stephanoceros Eichornii—A Splendid Rotifer—Its Gelatinous Bottle—Its Crown of Tentacles—Retreats on Alarm—Illumination Requisite to see its Beauties—Its Greediness—Richly-coloured Food—Nervous Ganglia97
CHAPTER X.
OCTOBER.
Stentors and Stephanoceri—Description of Stentors—Mode of viewing them—Their Abundance—Social Habits—Solitary Stentors living in Gelatinous Caves—Propagation by Divers Modes—Cephalosiphon limnias—A Group of Vaginicolæ—Changes of Shape—A Bubble-blowing Vorticella107
CHAPTER XI.
NOVEMBER.
Characteristics of the Polyzoa—Details of Structure according to Allman—Plumatella repens—Its Great Beauty under proper Illumination—Its Tentacles and their Cilia—The Mouth and its Guard or Epistome—Intestinal Tube—How it swallowed a Rotifer, and what happened—Curiosities of Digestion—Are the Tentacles capable of Stinging?—Resting Eggs, or "Statoblasts"—Tube of Plumatella—Its Muscular Fibres—Physiological Importance of their Structure118
CHAPTER XII.
DECEMBER.
Microscopic Hunting in Winter—Water-Bears, or Tardigrada—Their Comical Behaviour—Mode of viewing them—Singular Gizzard—Wenham's Compressorium—Achromatic Condenser—Mouth of the Water-Bear—Water-Bears' Exposure to Heat—Soluble Albumen—Physiological and Chemical Reasons why they are not killed by Heating or Drying—The Trachelius ovum—Mode of Swimming—Method of Viewing—By Dark-ground Illumination—Curious Digestive Tube with Branches—Multiplication by Division—Change of Form immediately following this Process—subsequent Appearances128
CHAPTER XIII.
Conclusion.—Remarks on Classification, &c.140