The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-09-20


Little children have been delighted
with fairy stories ever since FAIRIES We're
thought of, but can tell you some
thing far more wonderful than your
fairy stories. and true, besides, which
makes it more interesting.
If you think small people two or
three inches high are amusing, what
would you think of little creature SO
small as barely to be seen by the
naked eye; so small, indeed, that he
and thousand others have plenty of
room to live, and grow, and travel
around in tiny puddle of water? And
what sort of house would you think
such an atom of thing could build ?
What if should tell you that he can
build a brick house, that he selects
from the water i'm which he lives the
necessary material, shapes them in a
mould which he has in his body, and
piles up a regular house for himself?
You can hardly believe it but it is per-
fectly true.
What do you think of creatures so
tiny that whole family can live in
the cavities in a grain If sand? To
your eve, a grain of sand looks per-
fectly round; but these dots of crca-
lures find comfortable caves to live in.
How do you suppose they like it to he
| mixed up wi h water aud other things,
and walled up i'm a store wall? It's AS
bad to them as being shut up in an en-
| chanted ralace, end worse, for no dis
enchanting words will let them out.
The world of wonders opened to US
by the microscope is stranger than all
the tales of giants, genii, an enchant-
ment you ever heard. Think-if you
can-Of atoms 20 small that whole
colonies can live in one drop of water,
and swim around as freely rs whales
in the ocean; and that it would take
many millions of them together to he
as large as the head of pin. imagine
these specks of life swimming around in
| the water, chasing other creatures
mailer than themselves for food.
They are almost too small to think of.
You would never think of looking for
beauty in these little creatures, but
they ere exquisitely formed and color
ed. Many not so large as the head of
pin, arc as perfect and beautiful as a
flower, and just as nicely adapted to
their life in every particular as human
| being is to his
Many creatures in the sea look so
much like flowers that in Olden times
they were supposed to he flowers; but,
studied by the help of the microscope,
| they are seen 10 be animals, though as
beautiful in color and shape rs the
lOveliest flowers that grow. One kind is
called the sea-lily, and there are anem-
ones, da'ses, and other flower names.
But each one is hungry little animal,
waving around in the water, not 10
look pretty, but to catch something to
eat, to stuff into their eager mouths
they always have.
How do you suppose the sponge you
have to use with your slate at school,
spent his time when he was alive, be-
fore he was torn fiOm his home for
your use? Do you see those little,
very little hills on him. each one of
which has hole i'm it q? Well, he spent
his time i'm drawing in the water
through the other tiny holes all over
him, and after he had snatched all that
was good 10 cat, shifting it out again
through these little volcanoes. Why
he made a regular fountain down there
| at the bottom of the sea. l wouldn't
be surprised if your father wears some
pieces of the sponge for shirt studs and
| StteNS-bultOuS. lou dSh Hill IL III
wears the fashionable "moss agates,"
and if he does, you just tell him it is
no; hing but flint, with pieces of sponge
turned to stone i'm it.
If you've ever been i'm the noun
tains-and 1 hope you have--yOu re-
member seeing piles and piles of inn
mense rocks. Many of these rocks are
made entirely of the shells of some of
these sea-atOms, each one no larger
round than one of your hairs, but as
beautiful as the large sea-shelis you
have seen so carefully preserved.
These curiosities of the sea take the
most wonderful shape you ever thought
of. Some families look like a basket
of flowers, as large as peach-basket.
| Every stem of the basket is house, in
the shape of long tube, and the flow
ers are only the lovely little animals
heads stuck out OF their houses. Moth
ing can be more beautiful than this little
star waving around in the water. Then
there is the sea-mcss. To the eye il
seems mere film Of moss on some old
stone; but under the microscope. it
turns out to be a perfect forest of little
trees of various cOlOrs, and the tress
are made of live creatures, throwing
their arms around for food.
Do you wonder what all these mites
were made for? You may be sure that
each enc has his Use, however humble.
The wise men have decided that the Sc
creatures are scavengers. They cat
decaying animal and vegetable matter
that could be very hurlful if not dis
posed of. These scavengeIs. These
scavengers are food for larger atoms,
and those, i'm turn, are food for men.
Nothing is lost.
But don't think the wonders are all
in the sea. The insect world has mar
wells as well as the sea. Take the eggs
of moths and buiterfiieS-tiDy things
not so big as the head of pin. Why
birds eggs cannot compare with them
for beauty! In color especially they
are eXguisitely changeable. One egg is
covered with hexagOEal figures-beX-
agOnal, you know, is six sided-and
at each corner is a tiny raised button.
1t is a beautiful blue and white,
changeable. Another egg like a ripe
orange; another like beautiful round
shell; some are oval, with perfectly
regular figures all over; Others trans
parent like glass, SD the little curled-up
worm can be seen inside. Some have
beautifully-madec covers, with hinges,
so that the tiny creature has only to
open his door to get out.
But if the eggs are interesting, the
butterflies, moths, and insects are quite
as much so. There's one moth with
n regular finger at the end of his an-
tenna or feeler. Then the tongue of a
butterfly is most exquisitely made to
dip into flowers, being a perfect tube,
through which can suck the sweets as
easily rs you can suuck lemonade
through straw. Butterflies wings ale
covered with feathers, tapping over
each other like shingles Oh a roof.
NatuTalists can take off these feathers
one by ono and examine in their mi
croscorcs.
Then there's tiny fly which jnfests |
goo eberry-bushes, called the saw-fly. |
Why, that atom of creature has as |
perfect a saw as was ever cut out of
steel-yes, a pair of them, and a cou-
venicnt sheath for them i'm his own |
body, where he puts them when he
don want to use them.
P,rhaDs you know that the honey
bee has a nice pocket i'm his hind legs,
where he puts the bee bread he wants |
to carry home.
Possibly you have head that each of
YOUR hairs is a hollow tube with "A root |