422 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



like inhabitants, protruding from as many separate 

 cells, stretch forth their fairy arms and flash their 

 countless cilia in the sunshine : 



" Their glittering textures, like the filmy dew, 

 Dipp'd in the richest tincture of the skies, 

 Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes." 



It were absurd to try to illustrate such a scene by 

 words, or to expatiate on the multitudes that crowd 

 these densely populated realms for such they are ! 

 Yet, if we must descend to figures, let us try to cal- 

 culate the number of inhabitants on but a single 

 polypary. 



Dr. Johnston mentions a specimen of Flustra 

 membranacea (a most magnificent one certainly) five 

 feet in length by eight inches in breadth, and esti- 

 mated, by counting the cells on a square inch, that 

 this "web of silvery lace" had been the joint pro- 

 duction and habitation of above two millions of in- 

 dustrious inmates; so that this single colony on a 

 submarine island was about equal in number to the 

 whole human population of Scotland ; another Lon- 

 don in miniature ! 



Speculations like these are manifestly puerile. We 

 w r ill therefore describe, after Sir John Dalyell, an ex- 

 ample illustrative of the general O3conomy of such 

 productions, the study of which will enable the aqua- 

 riist easily to recognize the principal facts connected 

 with their history. 



The Fucus serratus, or "Sea-ware, 33 so common 

 on our rocky shores, is frequently invested by dark, 

 brownish gelatinous-looking patches, sometimes ad- 

 hering to one or both sides of the leaves or fronds, and 



