2i COLLECTINa SEA-WEEDS. 



tliougli there for ever so brief a stay, may enjoy, with 

 the least possible trouble, the amenities of zoolo- 

 gical study in a soup-plate, or even in a tumbler. It is 

 easy to knock off with a hammer, or even to dislodge 

 with a strong clasp-knife, a fragment of rock on which 

 a minute sea-weed is growing, proportioning the sur- 

 face of leaf to the volume of water, — and you have 

 an Aquarium. A wide-mouthed phial, — such, for 

 instance, as those in which Sulphate of Quinine is 

 commonly sold by the chymists, — affords a capital 

 opportunity for studying the minute Zoophytes, 

 Bryozoa, Nudibranch Mollusca, &c., as they may be 

 examined through the clear glass sides with perfect 

 ease, by the aid of a pocket-lens. The influence of 

 light should be allowed to operate on the sea-weed, 

 to promote the elaboration of oxygen; but at the same 

 time, if the weather be warm, care must be taken that 

 the subjects be not killed by the sun's heat. 



The long tongues or ledges that run out into the 

 sea towards the east, nearly flat, and so low as to be 

 overflowed even at low water of neap-tides, afford me 

 a rich harvest of Algce. They are full of narrow 

 fissures, overhung by the tangled Bladder- weed, under 

 the shadow of which flourish whole hosts of delicate 

 plants, olive and green, pink, crimson, and purple, 

 wdiich to behold is to admire. I shall have occasion 

 hereafter to speak of these in detail, and of the modes 

 of collecting them for the Aquarium, and shall there- 

 fore for the present dismiss them. 



These tangled masses of olive Bladder- weed, that 

 sprawl, like dishevelled locks, slovenly and slippery, 

 over acres of the low-lying ledges, are studded all 



