Continuing our search, we light upon the fat, sluggish, ungraceful larva of the graceful and brilliant Dragon-fly, the falcon of insects (Fig. 13). He is useful for dissection, so pop him in. Among the dead leaves you perceive several small leeches, and flat oval _Planariæ_, white and brown; and here also is a jelly-like mass, of pale yellow colour, which we know to be a mass of eggs deposited by some shell-fish; and as there are few objects of greater interest than an egg in course of development, we pop the mass in. Here (Fig. 14) are two molluscs, _Limnæus_ and _Planorbis_, one of which is probably the parent of those eggs. And here is one which lays no eggs, but brings forth its young alive: it is the _Paludina vivipara_ (Fig. 15), of which we learned some interesting details last month. Scattered over the surface of the net and dead leaves, are little dabs of dirty-looking jelly--some of them, instead of the dirty hue, are almost blood-red. Experience makes me aware that these dirty dabs are certainly Polypes--the _Hydra fusca_ of systematists. I can’t tell how it is I know them, nor how you may know them again. The power of recognition must be acquired by familiarity: and it is because men can’t _begin_ with familiarity, and can’t recognize these Polypes without it, that so few persons really ever see them. But the familiarity may be acquired by a very simple method. Make it a rule to pop every unknown object into your wide-mouthed phial. In the water it will probably at once reveal its nature: if it be a Polype, it will expand its tentacles; if not, you can identify it at leisure on reaching home, by the aid of pictures and descriptions. See, as I drop one of these into the water, it at once assumes the well-known shape of the Polype. And now we will see what these blood-red dabs may be; in spite of their unusual colour, I cannot help suspecting them to be Polypes also. Give me the camel-hair brush. Gently the dab is removed, and transferred to the phial. Shade of Trembley! it _is_ a Polype![23] Is it possible that this discovery leaves you imperturbable, even when I assure you it is of a species hitherto undescribed in text-books? Now, don’t be provokingly indifferent! rouse yourself to a little enthusiasm, and prove that you have something of the naturalist in you by delighting in the detection of a new species. “You didn’t know that it was new?” _That_ explains your calmness. There must be a basis of knowledge before wonder can be felt--wonder being, as Bacon says, “broken knowledge.” Learn, then, that hitherto only three species of fresh-water Polypes have been described: _Hydra viridis_, _Hydra fusca_, and _Hydra grisea_. We have now a fourth to swell the list; we will christen it _Hydra rubra_, and be as modest in our glory as we can. If any one puts it to us, whether we seriously attach importance to such trivialities as specific distinctions resting solely upon colour, or size, we can look profound, you know, and repudiate the