stop them on the way, will settle down as stalked polypes, and in
their turn practise some mystery of Owenian parthenogenesis, or
Steenstruppian alternation of generations, in which all traditional
distinctions of plant and animal, male and female, are laughed to
scorn by the magnificent fecundity of the Divine imaginations.

That dusty cloud which shakes off in the water as you move the weed,
under the microscope would be one mass of exquisite forms--Desmidiae
and Diatomaceae, and what not? Instead of running over long names,
take home a little in a bottle, put it under your microscope, and if
you think good verify the species from Hassall, Ehrenberg, or other
wise book; but without doing that, one glance through the lens will
show you why the chalk trout grow fat.

Do they, then, eat these infusoria?

That is not clear. But minnows and small fry eat them by millions;
and so do tadpoles, and perhaps caddis baits and water crickets.

What are they?

Look on the soft muddy bottom. You see numberless bits of stick.
Watch awhile, and those sticks are alive, crawling and tumbling over
each other. The weed, too, is full of smaller ones. Those live
sticks are the larva-cases of the Caperers--Phryganeae--of which one
family nearly two hundred species have been already found in Great
Britain. Fish up one, and you find, amid sticks and pebbles, a
comfortable silk case, tenanted by a goodly grub. Six legs he has,
like all insects, and tufts of white horns on each ring of his
abdomen, which are his gills. A goodly pair of jaws he has too, and