The examination of flowers by the microscope opens a new field
of wonder to the inquiring naturalist; by which we are enabled
to perceive that the minutest works of Nature are adorned with
the most consummate elegance and beauty. As one proof, from
innumerable others that might be selected, I beg to subjoin Sir
John Hill's interesting account of what appeared on examining
a carnation;--first published in the Inspector, No. 109. "The
principal flower in this _bouquet_, was a _carnation_; the fragrance
of this led me to enjoy it frequently and nearly: the sense of
smelling was not the only one affected on these occasions; while
that was satiated with the powerful sweet, the ear was constantly
attacked by an extremely soft but agreeable murmuring sound. It
was easy to know that some animal, within the covert, must be the
musician, and that the little noise must come from some little body
suited to produce it. I instantly distended the lower part of the
flower, and, placing it in a full light, could discover troops of
little insects frisking and capering with wild jollity among the
narrow pedestals that supported its leaves, and the little threads
that occupied its centre! I was not cruel enough to pull out any one
of them for examination: but adapting a microscope to take in at one
view, the whole base of the flower, I gave myself an opportunity of
contemplating what they were about, and this for many days together
without giving them the least disturbance.--Thus could I discover
their economy, their passions and their enjoyments. The microscope,
on this occasion, had given what nature seemed to have denied to
the objects of contemplation. The base of the flower extended
itself under its influence to a vast plain; the slender stems of
the leaves became trunks of so many stately cedars; the threads in
the middle seemed columns of massy structure, supporting at the
top their several ornaments; and the narrow spaces between were
enlarged into walls, paterres, and terraces. On the polished bottom
of these, brighter than Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, or in
larger companies, the winged inhabitants: these from little dusky
flies (for such only the naked eye would have shown them,) were
raised to glorious glittering animals, stained with living purple,
and with a glossy gold that would have made all the labours of the
loom contemptible in the comparison. I could, at leisure as they
walked together, admire their elegant limbs, their velvet shoulders,
and their silken wings; their backs vieing with the empyrean
in its blue; and their eyes, each formed of a thousand others,
out-glittering the little planes on a brilliant; above description,
and too great almost for admiration. Here were the perfumed groves,
the more than myrtle shades, of the poet's fancy, realized; here
the little animals spent their days in joyful dalliance; or in the
triumph of their little hearts, skipped after one another from stem
to stem among the painted trees; or winged their short flight to
the close shadow of some broader leaf, to revel undisturbed in the
heights of all felicity."