STRUCTURE OF ALCYONIDIUM. 431 



thicknesse of one's thumbe ; it is of a dark yellowish 

 colour, and buncheth forth on everie side with many 

 unequal tuberosities or knots ; whereupon Mr. Thomas 

 Hickes being in our companie, did fitly name it Sea 

 Ragged Staffe." 



Subsequent writers have appropriated to the same 

 substance the less heraldic designation of the " Pud- 

 ding-weed," and by both these titles it is now distin- 

 guished upon many parts of our coast. 



Little did worthy Dr. Johnson imagine, when he 

 pointed out to his friend Mr. Thomas Hickes the 

 newly-observed curiosity, what miracles lay hidden in 

 the semipellucid walls of that glass-like mass, or that 

 the " succulent and fungous plant/' as he calls it, was 

 in reality a colony of living animals, as countless 

 from their multitudes as they are admirable in the 

 details of their oeconomy, imperceptible almost to the 

 unassisted eye, on account of their minuteness, and 

 yet revealing under the microscope a structure sur- 

 passing even the dreams of the poet, 



" When fancy at a glance combines 

 The wondrous and the beautiful." 



The ALCYONIDIUM GELATINOSUM, for so we must 

 now call this exquisite production, is extremely com- 

 mon on many parts of the coast, especially after a 

 gale, when it is frequently cast up in immense quan- 

 tities. It is generally found attached to loose stones 

 and shells in the form of soft, flexible, jelly-like 

 masses, of very irregular shape, being rounded and 

 smooth upon the surface, or flattened, nodulated and 

 branched, sometimes attaining the length of two or 



