THE USES OF SEA-WEEDS. 75 



on the Kelp, is wonderful. A great volume might be 

 written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of 

 Sea-weed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float 

 on the surface, are so thickly encrusted with corallines as to 

 be of a white colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, 

 some inhabited by simple hydra-like polypi, others by more 

 organized kinds, and beautiful compound Ascidia. On the 

 leaves, also, various patelliform shells, Trochi, uncovered 

 mollusks, and some bivalves are attached. Innumerable 

 Crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the 

 great entangled roots, a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, 

 cr^bs of all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful IIolotlmricB, 

 Planarice, crawling nereidous animals of a multitude of 

 forms, all fall out together. Often as I recurred to a branch 

 of the Kelp, I never failed to discover animals of new and 

 curious structure. — I can only compare these aquatic 

 forests of the Southern Hemisphere with the terrestrial 

 ones in the intertropical regions. Yet if in any country a 

 forest was destroyed, I do not believe nearly so many species 

 of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction 

 of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous 

 species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or 

 shelter; with their destruction, the many cormorants and 



