FtlcemJ] SARGASSUM. 99 



leaves and branches fringed with Laomedea wluhilis, or 

 something so like our British zoophyte of that name, that 

 without minute examination it could not be distinguished 

 from our own tiny climbing coralline ; and at times, though 

 seldom, I have detected a very beautiful Tliimularia, 

 very like our own no less beautiful P. cristata, or Podded 

 Coralline. » 



Some of my young friends may know that our native 

 coralKne, of which I speak, is like a graceful tuft of cream- 

 coloured feathers, and that it is the work of thousands of 

 little active polypes, — a circumstance that renders it still 

 more interesting than our beautiful Sea-weeds. " Each 

 plume," says Lister, " may comprise from 400 to 500 

 polypi. Many specimens, all united by a common fibre, 

 and all the offshoots of one common parent, are often 

 located on one Sea-weed, the site then of a population 

 which neither London nor Pekin can rival ! " "^ 



Though only two species of the gulf-weed have been 

 found on the British shores, the number of species in the 

 genus is very great. In Agardh^s ' Spiopsis ' there are 

 ninety-five species enumerated, and several new and beau- 



* See Dr. Jolinstoa's admirable ' History of British Zoophytes,' page 92, 

 plate xxiii. fig. 1-3. 



