278 Irving : A New Marine Departure. 



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 day's trial is usually quite enough to satisfy curiosity and damp 

 the ardour of the majority of gushing volunteers. For instance, 

 despite obstacles, Scarborough actually made a start the other 

 day. Twenty collectors, including naturalists of both sexes 

 and children, turned up with a variety of receptacles such as 

 paper-bags, fish-bags, small flower-baskets and long sacks. 

 The man with the sacks did most of the work ! Next day 

 there was only one collector, the man with the sacks, a keen 

 naturalist undauntedly doing his ' bit.' He had secured the 

 services of five or six stranger boys and girls to help him to 

 pick and fill his bags. Where were the so-called enthusiasts ? 

 The Chairman of the Yorkshire Marine Biology Committee 

 is expected to serve as a Divisional Secretary, find collectors, 

 and organize them, not for scientific research, but to produce 

 jelly ! It is a new departure ! Needs must. Invalid soldiers 

 and sailors in our Red Cross hospitals require comforts in the 

 shape of jellies. Apparently the dried swimming bladders of 

 sturgeons are non-existent for preparing isinglass. Animal 

 skins, bones, hoofs, etc., are otherwise engaged, so there is no 

 gelatine, and Russian glue, for obvious reasons, is not forth- 

 coming. The alternative for these is bleached Carrageen, 

 which makes excellent jellies at a ridiculously low cost ! 

 The results of war cause strange revivals. This is one of them. 

 The Food Production Department hold out the bait of ' re- 

 vived industry after war ' as a stimulus to exertion, as if Scar- 

 borough would ever be inclined to M-rest this monopoly from 

 Ireland. Many of us would prefer purchasing the prepared 

 moss, even at present prices — double the pre-war rate — than 

 personally collect and prepare it. It would come cheaper 

 in the end. This is evidently a war economy ; Carrageen, 

 voluntarily supplied f.o.b., should be a great gain on isinglass 

 and gelatine at present fancy prices. Our fighting men, 

 however, must not suffer, and, as far as possible, we accom- 

 modate ourselves to departures from custom. Any Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union members visiting Scarborough up to the 

 end of October will be given work to do, if they are discovered ! 

 What is Carrageen '* Two allied sea-weeds, Chondrus crispus 

 and Gigartina mamillosa, which grow, often together, on rocks 

 near low-tide level. They are of a gristly consistence, four to 

 six inches high, of a purple-brown (almost black from iodine) 

 colour, often crowded with tiny mussels, stems frequently 

 covered with polyzoa, sertularia and other zoophytes, and 

 may occasionally harbour isopods, amphipods, and the 

 nudibranch Goniodorus. Apart from an iridescent play of 

 colours in sunlight under water the Chondrus, with its bifur- 

 cations, is unmistakeable, while Gigartina, with its mamillated 

 fronds and fluted stems, is equally distinctive and need not be 

 confounded with other weeds. Having removed the colouring. 



Nalur.-ilist. 



