A practical manual demonstrating how to observe small animals with a pocket lens and a simple dissecting microscope, offering guidance on basic appliances, collecting and mounting techniques. It surveys pond and nearby terrestrial microfauna—arthropods (beetles, cockroaches, earwigs, grasshoppers, aquatic hemipterans), spiders, mites, myriapods, crustaceans (prawns, shrimps, amphipods, isopods) and aquatic insect larvae—and describes external anatomy, life stages, locomotion, respiratory structures and typical habits. Numerous diagrams and photographs illustrate dissection methods, larval and pupal forms, and the kinds of detail attainable with low-power, hand-held optics.