194 



HAEDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Sept. 1, 1SG9. 



shorter pair forming a kind of penthouse over his 

 eyes, which he carries farther back in his head than 

 most of his congeners : he wears a growing sponge 

 on his back, and a large and well-selected assortment 

 of parasitic plants all over his body, after thefashion 

 of his race. 



Fig. 133. The Four-horned Spider-crab (male) (Pisa tetraodon) , 

 nat. size. 



But let us look at the individual weeds of which 

 this cable is composed. What a gathering of Thallo- 

 gens! We have a score of varieties of marine plants, 

 from cliffs and rocks, from the sea-surface, from the 

 shallows, and] from the deepest and darkest of the 

 Nereids' gardens, all torn from their native habitats 

 by the commotion caused in the depths below the 

 last time that iEolus gave the winds a holiday, et 

 vastos volvunt ad litora fluctus ; and, borne on the 

 lashing waves to the shore, the tide took them as it 

 climbed up the slope, and pushed the whole lot of 

 them before it in one indiscriminate omnium 

 gatherum, rolling them over and over, and over 

 again, like sailors making up a spare topsail, mixing 

 them up with sand and gravel, and old rags, chips, 

 and dead dogs, and all manner of rejectamenta ; and 

 having thus twisted them into ponderous vegetable 

 hawsers, and reached its own highest limits, the 

 bounds that it may not pass, with one final mighty 

 heave it dashed them up upon the strand, and then 

 ran away, and left them ^there for you dear young 

 readers and ourselves to gossip over. 



Draw out this long bundle of twisted rounded 

 strings, all fastened to one little black pebble, a bit 

 of hornblende rock ■. it is the Sea Whiplash, or Sea 

 Catgut (Chorda filiim) ; the " wee gigglets " there 

 would call the strings " mermaids' laces." At a 

 little distance this hank might easily be mistaken 

 for a pennyworth of the leather boot-laces the 

 hawkers sell in the streets. Then we have all the 

 sea-wracks. Here is the Bladder-wrack {Fucus 

 vesiculosa) ; the Serrated Wrack (F. serratus) ; the 



Knotted Wrack (F. nodosus), the air-bladders of 

 which the children love to pop ; and the SmallWrack 

 (F. canaliculatus) : all of which will be found depicted 

 and described in the September number of Science- 

 Gossip for 1S65. The fronds of F. serratus are 

 dotted with multitudes of little milk-white flattened 

 spiral shells (Spirorbis nautiloides), members of the 

 family Amphitritee. The animals contained in them 

 closely resemble the larger Serpulce, and possess six 

 branchial filaments of a rose-pink tint, aud a pedun- 

 culate operculum, shaped like an angel's trumpet. „ 



Fig. 134. Spirorbis nautiloides Fig 

 on Fucus serratus, nat. size. 



^^MA 



135. Spirorbis nautiloides, 

 X 25. 



Of weeds belonging to the littoral zone, we find 

 a bunch of Laurentia pinnatifida, which the good 

 people north o' Tweed call Pepper-Dulse, and eat 

 with a relish, on account of its pungent flavour. 

 Here are the grey-green tufts of Cladophora rupes- 

 tris, and the purple-red branching fronds of Chou- 

 drus crisptis, the well-known Carrageen moss, from 

 which we extract a most nutritious jelly, to say 

 nothing of bandoline for fixing rebellious plaits of 

 hair aud pointing our moustaches. 



Erom a deeper zone come these: — Thong or Strap- 

 weeds (Himanthalia lorea), and these tough strong 

 brown ribbons of the Sea-wand (Laminaria digitata), 

 which is sold for food in Scotland under the name 

 of " tangle ": the round leathery stems look like the 

 thick ends of American cow-hide whips, and we 

 remember in our boyish days how we used to cut 

 them off for " tongos " to thrash the hostile alumni 

 of a rival school, who sometimes charged us in the 

 streets. But these stems can minister to the relief of 

 far greater sufferings than they have ever been made 

 to inflict : from them the chemist extracts iodine, 

 one of the most valuable of medicines; moreover, 

 the Laminaria stalks dried and used for fuel by 

 shipwrecked mariners are said to be the sea-weeds 

 that aided man in the discovery of glass. Two or 

 three mussels have anchored themselves to the 

 branching roots, and almost 

 every one of them on being 

 opened is found to contain a 

 lively little Pea-crab [Pinno- 

 theres pisum, fig. 136). It pro- 

 bably takes up its abode there 

 to shelter its soft defenceless 

 frame from hard knocks ; it 

 patronizes other bivalves, as 

 the Mactra and Modiola, and especially the Pinna. 



Fig. 136. The Pea-crab 



(Pinnotlieres pisum). 



