MOUNT BERMUDA 



would be a living six-foot ant, or a fifty-foot dog, 

 or a hundred-foot man. When we think of a single 

 cell we think automatically of something micro- 

 scopic, such as the cells in the human body which 

 have a maximum diameter of a fraction of a milli- 

 meter. In Halicystis, however, we have a large 

 green marble, probably the largest cell in the world. 



Aside from its interest, so germane to my present 

 mood, Halicystis is a very remarkable organism. 

 The Bermudians call them sea-bottles, and after 

 storms they are sometimes found in dozens washed 

 ashore along the south beach on Nonsuch. They have 

 great resiliency, and when fresh and alive will 

 bounce five or six feet from a smooth surface. When 

 the sun shines brightly upon a group on the sand 

 just as they have been left by the waves, their 

 beauty is that of polished emeralds — the sunlight 

 passing through their translucent green substance 

 and deeply staining their thin shadow. 



They may be round or pyriform and no one 

 knows where they begin life, whether hidden be- 

 neath some rock near shore, or as is more probable, 

 farther out in the mysterious mid-zone. Unlike re- 

 lated forms, when freed from their shght attach- 

 ment they float buoyantly. In an aquarium they will 

 live for a week or more and then gradually pale out 

 until they are like ghosts of grapes, and little by 

 little, settle to the bottom with only a few jade- 

 colored granules in place of the nucleus and all the 

 complex vital mechanism of this " simple " plant of 

 the sea. I have measured a Halicystis one and one- 



13 



