SERTULARIA. 135 



Feed the live petals of her insect flowers, 



Her shell-wrack gardens and her sea-fan bowers ; 



With ores and gems adorn her coral cell. 



And drop a pearl in every gaping shell," — Botanic Garden. 



Mr. W. Thompson states, " I have collected a few ex- 

 amples of a black, as well as many of a red colour/' 



16. Seutulaeia argentea, Squirrel's Tail Coralline. 

 (Plate V. fig. 15.) 



Hab. In deep water. On oysters, and other bivalve 

 shells. In brackish water, in shallow pools, and on the 

 floodgates of a dam in Belfast, Mr. W. Thompson. 



This beautiful feathered coralline is found in great abun- 

 dance, Ellis states, in the island of Sheppey, eastward of 

 Sheerness, growing on the rock oysters. " It generally 

 grows erect," he adds, " with thick tufts of alternately den- 

 ticulated ramifications placed in a spiral or screw-like order 

 round the stem from top to bottom."" The whole coralline 

 assumes somewhat of the shape of a squirrel's tail, whence 

 the common English name. It is an exceedingly elegant 

 polypidom, rising sometimes to nearly a yard in height, and, 

 from being quite flexible, waving in the sea as the somewhat 

 similarly- shaped Swedish junipers wave in the breeze. 

 When it gets old, the under part of the stem becomes quite 



