Hand lenses are much smaller than the lollipop type, with lenses only about the size of a quarter

Instead of just one lens, hand lenses have two, with one lens mounted above the other

The hand lens's lenses swivel as a single unit into the handle for storage

Hand lenses provide much more magnification than the lollipop type

USES FOR A HAND LENS

Average naturalists, to whom an acorn is as interesting as a sea gull, probably use hand lenses more than binoculars. Hand lenses are just the thing for looking at insects, for instance, when we must examine mouthparts, tarsi and wing venation, such as that at the left (a Cicada wing plucked from a spider web... ) during the identification process. With hand lenses we can see the wonderful diversity of egg types that bugs deposit beneath squash leaves in our gardens, and we can discover nematodes in the nodules of infested roots.

You'll find that many of a blossom's most important features can be seen only with the help of considerable magnification. For example, with a hand lens you can see how many "cells" or "carpels" comprise a flower's ovary, even if the ovary itself is so tiny that it's hardly visible. You can also see whether hairs on a leaf's undersurface are sharp-pointed or blunt, or possess glands. Needless to say, you're lost without a hand lens when studying mosses, lichens, and ferns.

Even field geologists use hand lenses. To identify rocks it's important to know which minerals are present, and often a mineral's identity is revealed by the shapes of minuscule crystals embedded in it. Calcite crystals are rhombohedral in form, while typical quartz crystals are hexagonal.

But, to tell the truth, maybe the most glorious thing to do with a hand lens is just to wander around looking at whatever is at hand. At the left you see what I saw the other day when I absentmindedly picked up a Black Oak leaf, held it up to the sun, and gazed at its veins through my hand lens. I was dazzled!

THREE TRICKS FOR USING A HAND LENS

Here are three important rules for using hand lenses:

• Hold the hand lens right up to the eye you're looking through, maybe even with the back of your thumb resting on your cheek

• The thing you're looking at must be very close to the hand lens, probably less than an inch away

• Think small! A whole world of tiny plants and animals are never seen by most of us simply because it never occurs to us look for little things in usually unnoticed places.

With regard to the last point, to show yourself the power in thinking small, on a nice day when you're lying in the grass, just roll over on your stomach and look beneath the grassblades. Put your nose right up to the soil and look at the earthworm castings, the wandering ants and ping-ponging springtails. Look at all the colors and designs of things the big world doesn't have. And use that hand lens to see those things even better!

GETTING A HAND LENS

Hand lenses are sold in a variety of places. Jewelry shops sometimes display them, but usually at prices much higher than you need to pay. Camera shops often have one or two displayed among the dozens of lenses inside their display cases, and this is probably the best bet for buying good lenses at reasonable prices -- probably around $10.

However, before buying in either of those places, you might check out the mall's toy shop. Sometimes pretty good lenses can be purchased as part of a detective kit. That way you can get a badge and false moustache, to boot!

A good magnification power is ten (10 X). Weaker lenses won't show some of the details we need to see but stronger ones will have such shallow depths of field that most of what is looked at will be out of focus.

Here are two suggestions to keep in mind:

• Get lenses that don't scratch easily. Plastic lenses scratch too much, and uncoated glass lenses scratch more than coated ones.

• Use the lens before buying it to make sure it has a good depth of field -- some lenses focus only at a small area in the lens's center with the rest of the field showing up blurry. Try to find one where nearly the whole field is in focus when you look at the whorls on the tip of your finger.

THE BIG LOLLIPOP-TYPES ARE NICE, TOO

Less powerful lollipop-type magnifying glasses display larger areas than hand lenses and thus are useful for looking at spiders and other small critters you don't want to get too close to. Or maybe you're watching a large number of ants devour a caterpillar and you want to magnify the whole field of carnage. So, there are uses for the reading kind of magnifying glass, but if you have to choose having just one, the little hand lens is much better.