SEA-MATS AND SHELLY CORALLINES. 59 



CHAPTER IV. 



SEA-MATS AND SHELLY CORALLINES. 



WHEN we were at the sea-side last summer we bought, 

 you may remember, of a poor widow whom we met on the 

 beach, a little basket of dried sea-weeds. 



Now all of those objects were not sea- weeds. I mean 

 they were not all plants ; some of them are animals, and 

 these I wish to bring under your notice this evening for 

 our microscopical entertainment. Here are exquisitely 

 delicate crimson leaves, as thin or thinner than the thin- 

 nest tissue paper, with solid ribs and sinuous edges. Here 

 is a tall and elegant dark red feather, quite regularly pin- 

 nated. Here is a tuft of purple filaments as " fine as 

 silkworm's thread." And here is a broad irregular expanse 

 of the richest emerald green, crumpled and folded, yet as 

 glossy as if varnished. 



Well, all of these are plants, certainly : they are veri- 

 table Alga, or sea- weeds. But here are other plant-like 

 objects of a pale brown, drab, or snowy-white hue. Let 

 us take this flattened brown leaf, divided into irregular 

 broad lobes ; it looks almost like a thickish paper, and is 

 about as flexible. But pass your finger over it, and you 

 feel that its surface is evenly roughened ; and on close and 

 careful scrutiny you discern, even by the naked eye, that 

 its surface is covered with a delicate network of minute 

 shallow cells. 



" Broad Horn wrack," and " Leafy Sea-mat," are the 

 names which the old collectors gave to this object ; and 



