ase. Cer Se 
On Collecting and Preserving Alge. 43 
tide-pdols left by the recess of the tide on a flattish rocky shore. 
Those which grow at a greater depth than the tide exposes, must 
be sought by dredging, or by dragging after a boat an iron cross 
furnished with numerous strong hooks, on all shores where such 
contrivances can be applied; but where dredging for deep-water 
plants is impossible, the collector must trust to finding his desid- 
erata among the heaps of weed thrown up on flat shores after a 
gale. Even after ordinary tides many delicate species float asho 
and may be collected along the beach in a perfect state. 'There- 
fore, after visiting the more rocky places at low water, the sandy 
or shingly beach should always be inspected at the return of the 
In collecting from heaps, care should be taken to select 
those specimens which have suffered least in color, &c., from ex- 
posure to the air, rejecting those that are bleached white. 
‘<A common vasculum, a basket, or a bag, will serve nue 
home the larger and less delicate kinds; but even these shou 
not be left so long unsorted as to allow of their becoming clotted 
together. ar 
“In collecting alge from their native places of growth, great 
care should be taken to pluck the whole plant from the very base, 
and, if it have an obvious root, to gather the specimen with its 
root attached. This is of much importance, and apt to be neg- 
lected by young collectors, who are satisfied with plucking 
branches or scraps, which often afford no just notions of the 
mode of growth, or natural habit of the plant from which they 
have-been plucked, and which, in many cases, are wholly insufli- 
cient for the first purpose of a specimen, that of ascertaining its 
position in the system. In many of the leafy fuct (sargassa) 
the leaves which grow on the lower and on the upper branches 
are quite different; and were a lower and an upper branch to be 
plucked from the same individual, they might pass for portions of 
different species. It becomes of moment, therefore, to gather, 
when it can be done, the whole plant, including the root, It is 
true that the larger kinds may be judiciously divided; but the 
young collector had better aim at selecting moderate sized speci- 
mens of the entire plant, than attempt the division of large spec- 
imens, unless he keep in view that every specimen should be an 
