MORE ABOUT SEA "FIRS" 



By S. F. MAURICE DAUNCEY 

 With Photographs by the Author and others 



AS was stated in a former article, the 



2\ Sea " Firs " washed up on the beach 



are generally only the skeletons of 



colonies which have now done with the 



rough and tumble life of their ocean- 



Photni;>\i/<lt by A. I'. iJauncey, 



1. SICKLE CORALLINE. 



world. Sometimes, however, colonies may 

 be found there which are still alive, and 

 occasionally such can be picked up even 

 at the fishmonger's attached to shells. 



But if you wish to study these interesting 

 forms of lowly life with anything like care, 

 you should not depend on specimens 

 picked up thus by chance, but get live 

 colonies from those natural aquaria — 



the rock-pools. Quite a number of Sea 

 "Firs" can be found in these. 



As soon, however, as you take out of 

 the pool the shell, or bit of rock, or blade 

 of weed on which the colony has settled, 

 you are likely to be disappointed. Its 

 lovely feather-like form has gone as though 

 an evil magician had, unseen, waved his 

 wand above it. But " the grace of the 

 fashion of it " was not an illusion. It 

 was due to the " pinnae " — the feather- 

 like growths from the branches of the 

 main stem — standing out each distinct 

 from its neighbour. But when the colony 

 is withdrawn from the water they collapse 

 into a formless mass. This is the case with 

 the "Fir" known as the Sickle Coralline 

 {Hydrallmama falcata), two photographs 

 of which are reproduced. The first shows 

 an aquarium specimen in which the natural 



2. SICKLE CORALLINE (DRIED). 



1070 



