180 THE SEA-SHORE. 



into whistles by children, whence the plant is 

 called Sea-whistles. If put into the fire, they 

 burst with a loud report. 



Another species,* which grows in similar situa- 

 tions, differs from this in having a more dilated 

 stem, of a thinner substance, and more nume- 

 rous air-bladders, which are, however, smaller. 

 You can scarcely walk on a weedy sea-shore with- 

 out treading on the latter, which crack under 

 the feet at every step. Like the last, it is 

 extensively used in the manufacture of kelp. 

 " In the Isles of Jura and Skye it is frequently 

 a winter food for cattle, which regularly come 

 down to the shores at the receding of the tide 

 to seek for it; and sometimes even the deer 

 have been known to descend from the moun- 

 tains to the sea-side to feed upon this plant. 

 Linnasus informs us that the inhabitants of Goth- 

 land, in Sweden, boil it with water, and, mixing 

 with it a little coarse meal or flour, feed their hogs 

 upon it; for which reason they call the plant 

 Swintang or Swine-tang; and in Suavia, he says, 

 the poor people cover their cottages with it, and 

 use it for fuel. In Jura, and some other of the 

 Hebrides, the inhabitants dry their cheeses with- 

 out salt, by covering them with the ashes of this 

 plant, which abounds so much in that substance, 

 that from five ounces of the ashes may be pro- 

 cured two ounces and a half of fixed alkaline salts, 

 or half their own weight." Sir W. J. Hooker. 

 Drummond says, that " the cattle go regularly 

 down to the shore at ebb-tide, and feed on 

 this and various other sea-weeds, and it is ob- 

 served that they know their time exactly, even 



* Fucus vesiculosus. 



