ZOOPHYTES. 



249 



but more generally the tufts vary in height from 

 four to five inches. Ellis remarks of it, " This 

 very neat and most regularly formed coralline, 



consists of long trailing branches, with very sharp 

 teeth placed exactly opposite ; each pair seems to 

 be jointed into the next. The slender branches 

 grow in tufts like branches of hair." Sometimes, 

 when of a pale horn colour, and dripping with 

 the sea-water, it looks almost like tufts of silver 

 thread. There is a little cover or lid to the vesi- 

 cles of this species, and hence its scientific name, 

 from operculum, a lid. In summer time the tufts 

 are covered with these little clear vesicles. Our 

 figure represents them both in their natural size and 

 magnified appearance. The sea-hair is generally 

 placed among our finer sea-weeds, in those little 

 landscapes sold in the shops in sea-coast towns. 



An elegant zoophyte on shells in deep water, 

 called the Bottle-brush Coralline (Thuiaria Thuia), 

 is so like that domestic implement that it received 



