148 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 



opercularis. They were fully four inches in height. Dr. 

 Johnston says, "it is very delicate, of a white or rarely 

 horn-colour" (with us always white), " simple, plumous, 

 and pretty." The cells are transparent ; the vesicles, in the 

 West, are often produced in great abundance, and the aper- 

 ture, after the expulsion of the ova, is cut into a circle of 

 spinous teeth, or, as Ellis expresses it, "the tops of the 

 ovaries are divided like a coronet." 



When the dredge had brought up some fine specimen of 

 more than four inches in height, as the boatmen expressed 

 surprise that we should care for what was, in its collapsed 

 state, as worthless-looking as a wetted feather, I told them 

 to hand me some water in a vessel which was in the boat, 

 and plunging the Pecten with several fine specimens on it 

 into the water, I told them to look at it now. Every spe- 

 cimen being now spread out in its native beauty, they were 

 filled with astonishment, saying they did not think that 

 there had been anything so bonny in the whole bay *. Meet- 



* "These beautiful algse were not the only parasites ou the scallop-shells. 

 There was something more conspicuous, as it was about four inches iii length, 

 but certainly it did not seem more attractive : it was like a drookit white 

 feather. But place it again in the water, and what does it become ? It has 

 recovered from its state of collapse, and though still like a feather, it is one 

 of great beauty and elegance; it is a zoophyte, Plumularia pinnaia. You 



