Oct. 1, 1S67.] 



HAHDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



217 



LEFT BY THE TIDE. 



Here, too, were living flowers, 

 Which, like a bud compacted, 

 Their purple cups contracted ; 

 And now in open blossom spread, 

 Stretched, like green anthers, many a seeking head. 



Southet. 



E any one will 

 take the trouble 

 to visit which 

 he pleases of 

 the fashionable 

 watering-places 

 on the coast 

 during the pre- 

 sent season of the year, un- 

 less convinced by the de- 

 mands made upon his purse 

 at every turn, a stroll on the 

 beach will afford conclusive 

 evidence that humanity has 

 its migrations as well as 

 feathered bipeds. Some 

 mature specimens will in- 

 dulge in ablutions, others in 

 inglorious sprawlings upon 

 the beach, and juveniles will 

 rush deep into the mysteries 

 of sand-pies, shovels and pails, when and where 

 sand is to be found. One and all seem to be bliss- 

 fully ignorant or indifferent to everything but draw- 

 ing in as much fresh air as will be equivalent to 

 their railway fare — plus their lodgings,, and a few 

 items in the way of "extras." Yet children will 

 be inquisitive — they will demand of parents and 

 guardians replies to all kinds of unconnected queries, 

 for which the said parents and guardians are not at 

 all times prepared. The subject of many such queries 

 are the strange-looking objects which lie scattered 

 up and down upon the beach, " left by the tide." 

 We cannot suppose that the intelligent parents 

 whose eyes habitually scan our pages are unable to 

 satisfy the demands made upon them relative to 

 objects so common as those we are about to allude 



to, but it may 

 No. 34. 



afford them some gratification to 



be able to refer the querist to the present number 

 for an answer, whflst they, reclining in dreamy 

 wakefulness, can survey in peace the flight of a 

 solitary seagull, or watch the waves dashing and 

 splashing over the sunken rocks, rehearsing to 

 themselves, meanwhile, the lay of " The Ancient 

 Mariner," or the ballad of " The Inchcape Bell." 



Localization has its advantages, even when the 

 commonest objects are to be described, and we may 

 as well confess at once that the objects to illustrate 

 this chapter were picked up on the beach at 

 Hastings — a place no naturalist need be ashamed 

 of visiting, for it has other charms beside sea-air, 

 mermaids, and fishy odours. Romance may cling 

 to the Lover's Seat, and take no note of the stray 

 wanderer below, cracking the old thistle stems, and 

 looking for a rare beetle which he might seek in 

 vain elsewhere. It's of no use that he offers half- 

 a-crown apiece for specimens of another coveted 

 rarity, which he hopes will parade the streets of St. 

 Leonards. It's low water, and everybody is off to 

 the beach, regardless of beetles or butterflies, and 

 thither we follow. 



Here, there, and everywhere lies the Sea Wrack, 

 which we have figured and described in a former 

 volume (Science-Gossip, 1S66, page 204). Most 

 common is the Serrated Wrack, and scarcely less so 

 the Black Tang, or Bladder Wrack. Of other sea- 

 weeds, the long furbelows of Laminaria saccharina 

 are extremely common, and at every few steps a 

 fragment or two of Carrageen (Chondrus crispus), or 

 Irish Moss (fig. 207), as it is sometimes called. It 

 is one of the most useful of seaweeds, and when 

 carefully washed to remove the salt-water, may by 

 boiling be made into a very palatable article of 

 food. Seaweeds are much used as food by the 

 Chinese and Japanese, especially the Agar-agar of 

 the Malays, a species not found on our coasts. 



L 



