A disciple of the above mentioned branch of natural history will dilate with rapture upon the wondrous transformations which many of his favourite insects undergo. But none that he can show surpasses in grandeur and beauty the changes which are witnessed in many members of the marine animal kingdom. He points to the leaf, to the bloom upon the peach, brings his microscope and bids me peer in, and behold the mysteries of creation which his instrument unfolds. 'Look,' he says, pointing to the verdant leaf, 'at the myriads of beings that inhabit this simple object. Every atom,' he exultingly exclaims, 'is a standing miracle, and adorned with such qualities, as could not be impressed upon it by a power less than infinite!' Agreed. But has not the zoologist equal reason to be proud of his science and its hidden marvels? Can he not exhibit equal miracles of divine power? Take, as an example, one of the monsters of the deep, the whale; and we shall find, according to several learned writers, that this animal carries on its back and in its tissues a mass of creatures so minute, that their number equals that of the entire population of the globe. A single frond of marine algæ, in size 'No bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman,' may contain a combination of living zoophytic beings so infinitely small, that in comparison the 'fairies' midwife' and her 'team of little atomies' appear monsters as gigantic, even as the whale or behemoth, opposed to the gnat that flutters in the brightest sunbeam. Again: in a simple drop of sea-water, no larger than the head of a pin, the microscope will discover a million of animals. Nay, more; there are some delicate sea-shells(_foraminifera_) so minute that the point of a fine needle at one touch crushes hundreds of them. 'Full nature swarms with life; one wondrous mass Of animals, or atoms organized, Waiting the vital breath when Parent Heaven Shall bid his spirit flow.'