34 HALF AN HOUR WITH SEAWEEDS. 



III. 

 HALF AN HOUR WITH SEAWEEDS. 



IT may have occupied you, gentle reader, the whole 

 morning, in collecting the treasures to which we are 

 about to devote half an hour's gossip. To be success- 

 ful in collecting seaweeds, you ought to follow the 

 retreating tide step by step. When it has reached its 

 farthest, then you may expect to be rewarded, 

 especially if the sea bottom be rocky and uneven. 

 There is nothing like broken ground for studying 

 the marine flora. As you have walked along you 

 have been surprised at the marvellous abundance of 

 seaweeds of every size and colour, occupying nearly 

 every available patch of the area. 



A rich meadow in June does not bring forth a 

 more charming variety of grasses and flowers than 

 does the rocky ground between high and low tides. 

 Your vasculum speedily gets filled, to say nothing 

 of the monsters as tall as yourself, which the most 

 enthusiastic botanist would never dream of " mount- 

 ing." All that you can do with them is to examine 

 them, to cut off such portions as are interesting, say 

 the fructifying organs ; or examine them carefully 

 for the rich store of zoophytes, parasitic seaweeds, 

 &c., usually attached to them. Supposing you to 

 have exhausted a collecting ground like this, you 



