animals to a glass jar filled with sea-water so that he may see them more clearly--at last stands up and straightens his back, gazing over the sun-bathed scene from the tumbled weed-grown rocks, encrusted with crowds of purple-blue mussels, to the patches of golden sand, clear pools, and the blue sea beyond. Then he may note (as I have) a curious rhythmical sound if he is among rocks covered with seaweeds--a quiet but incessant "hiss-hiss," which is heard above the deeper-toned lapping of the little waves among the big stones. This is the sound made by the rasp-like tongues of the periwinkles feeding on the abundant weed, over which they crawl, leaving the water and "browsing" on the surface exposed to the air by the fall of the tide. The browsing sound of these little snails is to the seashore what the humming of bees is to inland meadows. Day after day and at various seasons of the year the nature-lover will visit this sanctuary, and, whilst contemplating the lovely forms, colour, and movement of its denizens, will learn the secrets of their life, of their comings and goings, and the mysteries of their reproduction, their birth, and their childhood. Each day he finds something unknown to his brother naturalists. He will examine it with his lens, paint it in all its beauty, and tell of it in due course in printed page and coloured portraiture; but he is no mere seeker for novelty, nor is the credit of discovery the motive of his devotion. Beyond and greater than any such gains are the incomparable delight, the never-failing happiness which personal intimacy with the secret things of natural beauty bring to him. He has yet another chance of such enjoyment, if he be a microscopist, and familiar with the inhabitants of fresh-water ponds. A pond is, in many cases, an oasis in the waste of civilization, a miniature nature-reserve, rarely, if ever, affected by human proceedings until haply it is abolished altogether. A fairly deep, stagnant pond under trees in some secluded park is one of the most favourable kind, but all sorts deserve inquiry (even the rain pools on the roofs of old houses in Paris have rewarded the faithful seeker), and may prove, for a time at least, havens of refuge for a wonderful assemblage of animalcules and minute microscopic plants, which for the most part perish as did the bison of the American plains by the mere disturbance caused by the propinquity of civilized man. I knew such a pond--it is now built over--near Hampstead. As one lay on the bank and peered into the depths of the pond the transparent, glass-like larvæ of the "plume fly" (Corethra) could be seen swimming in the clear water, driving before it troops of minute pink-coloured water-fleas (Daphnia) and other crustaceans.