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the murderers, and where they might have washed their crimson-stained hands. 

 One little pool left in the bed of the river was particularly sanguine in aspect, 

 and all round its margin a space wa3 reddened on the stones, very much 

 resembling blood. I here collected some capital specimens, and on subjecting, 

 these to the microscope on'my return home, they proved to be a remarkable cellu- 

 lar Algal, representations of which I have carefully sketched. It is an undoubted 

 Algoid plant belonging to the family of Palmellece, and is very near if not iden- 

 tical with what Dr. Hassall has called Sorospora grumosa. The frond is of a 

 brick-red colour, the globules blood-red, filled with granules, and surrounded by 

 a narrow pellucid margin. It is stated in Griffiths and Henfrey's " Micro- 

 graphic Dictionary " that Sorospora is a genus of Palmellacece not clearly dis- 

 tinguished from Glaiocapsa and Protococcus. My plant is certainly allied to 

 Protococcus ; it is covered with a pellucid membrane, and its structure is very 

 similar to Protococcus viridis. But the vivid crimson of my Algal is remark- 

 able when mature, though small immature separated cells are pale green and 

 orange. The gelatinous covering often remains in torn patches upon the cells, 

 and the included granules are very numerous, which makes it different from P. 

 viridis. I have found this same sanguine production upon a rock left dry in the 

 river Wye, in Radnorshire, and also on stones in the bed of the river Dee, in 

 Merionethshire. This, probably, is the organism on the " red-spurtled " stones 

 at St. Winifred's Well, Holy- Well, Flint, said to be marked with the virgin 

 saint's blood. 



There is another red Algal, named Protococcus pluvialis, found occasionally 

 in rain-water, or on roofs after rain, and which is at first covered by a thin 

 integument, that, bursting, displays the crimson cell filled with granules be- 

 neath. Some of these Algals increase so rapidly, that in Wiltshire I have seen 

 an unused canal with its surface made of a vermillion hue for a mile or more, 

 singularly contrasting with the neighbouring green meadows. 



These coloured cellular Algas are developed either on the surface of shal- 

 low water, or on the mud of pools left exposed to the sun, and hence has 

 arisen the tales of bloody ponds, and water turned into blood, denoting, it was 

 vulgarly believed, some dire calamity about to happen. A few years since, a 

 shallow pond at Mathon, on the borders of Herefordshire, and the mud around 

 it, assumed a sanguine aspect from a species of Palmella, which rather 

 frightened the natives thereabout ; and I have seen a damp rock in Switzerland 

 thus crimsoned. I saw a pond at Bell-broughton also encrusted with another 

 species of red Algal. My friend, Mr. Pouting, two years since, directed my atten- 

 tion to a pond not far from Eastnor, which had a sanguine aspect, but which 

 was undoubtedly caused by one of the Infusorias, named Astasia Hcematodcs, 

 which, however, in a dry and dead state, can scarcely be distinguished from 

 an Algal, and when living changes its form most remarkably. My friend, 

 the Rev. Andrew Bloxam, informs me that this Algal has appeared this year 

 on a pond at Twycross, Leicestershire. Another red Algal, called Palmella 

 cr'icnta, or the " Gory dew," may be occasionally seen on the ground, or at the 



