PLUMULARIA. 149 
ing the wife of one of the Arran boatmen, in a succeeding 
season, I asked her if her husband had been getting many 
clams (¢. e., Pectens) lately; she said, “ Ah no, he has been 
getting hardly onything ava’ (at all). Some vile ne’er- 
do-weels set their lines on the Sabbath day, and fish and 
clams ha’ a’ left the island ;—and nae wonder.” ‘ Nae won- 
der,” responded I, “nae wonder.” ‘ We have had very 
boisterous weather this spring, Janet, are you not frightened 
when Donald is out fishing, when the weather is so stormy?” 
“Na, na; its stormy aneugh whiles, but Donald’s no the 
gear that ¢raiks*. He aye fins the road hame.” “ But was 
would not think that that beautiful white feather had life ;—but you see only 
the habitations. The alarmed inhabitants have fled into their houses. But 
place the polypidom, as it is called, in a tumbler of sea-water, and when the 
alarm is over, the inhabitants will again appear. The polypes are hydraform, 
and spread forth many tentacula in search of food, which they greedily grasp. 
The feather is formed of calcareous matter mixed with gelatine to give it 
flexibility, so that it may the better stand the buffeting of the waves. Ob- 
serve the stem or quill of the feather, and you will see that it is full of red 
matter. That is the medullary pulp. Every plumule of the feather is a 
street. Even with the naked eye you may observe on each plumule about a 
dozen notches. Each of these is the house or cell of a polype; so that in 
a good specimen we see a kind of marine village, which, under the teaching 
of God, has been beautifully constructed by the thousand inhabitants it 
contains.” —LEztract from ‘ Excursions to the Island of Arran, by D. L. 
* Goes amissing. 
