206 



PEED ON FLIXT. 



Many other species accompany it in our own and other 

 seas. The Licmophora, or Fan-bearer, which we also 

 figure, is one of the most beautiful of our native kinds, 

 and is very common in April and May on the leaves 

 of Zostera, as well as on many of the smaller Algee. 

 It is very generally distributed round the British coasts, 

 forming gelatinous masses of a clear brown colour 

 on the plants it frequents. Under the microscope, 

 however, its colours are 

 much more gay, a yellow 

 shade, variously banded 

 and marked with deeper- 

 coloured spots, tinging 

 the fan-like leaves, which 

 are borne on slender 

 threads transparent as 

 glass. The pieces or 

 joints of which these 

 plants are composed, are 

 called/rashes ; and each 

 frustule consists of a 

 single cell, whose coat is 

 composed of a very deli- 

 cate membrane made of 



LICMOPHORA FLABELLATA. 



organized silex. That 



these plants have thus the power of withdrawing silex, 

 or flint-earth, in some manner from the waters of the 

 sea, and fixing it in their tissues, is certain, but the 

 exact method in which this is effected has not been 

 ascertained. A remarkable point in their history re- 

 sults from this power of feeding on flint. It is this : 



