20 HANDY BOOK OP 



Among suck of the aquatic flora as form extensive sub- 

 marine meadows, the String-like Corda, or Corda feticem, 

 is most frequent on cur shores. Its long and narrow tufted 

 fronds, clothed with innumerable gelatinous filaments, are not 

 ^infrequently at least forty feet in length, and, though com- 

 mon to rocks and stones washed by the tide, attain the 

 greatest perfection in quiet, land-locked bays, with a sandy, 

 or somewhat muddy bottom. In such places the corda 

 forms extensive meadows, so dense as often to endanger the 

 unfortunate swimmer, who rashly ventures among its slimy 

 and tenacious cords, however pleasing to the eye, while 

 gently undulating with every motion of the stream. Ven- 

 ture not, therefore, in watery places where grows the string- 

 like corda, for the risk is great, even if its floating cords 

 are seen at a considerable depth beneath the surface, but 

 rather obtain a rambling branch from off the shore, and ex- 

 amine its wonderful construction. Each frond is composed 

 of a single fillet, one or two lines in breadth, spirally 

 wreathed into a filiform tube, formed by the cohesion of its 

 edges, and these, when separated from the outer skin and 

 firinly twisted, acquire such a degree of strength and rough- 

 ness, that Highlanders use them for fishing-lines. Hence 

 in Scotland, the name of Lucky Minny's lines — in England, 

 sea-traces, as if fitted to curb the steeds of Neptune. Strange 

 contrasts are they to the withered-looking Deusta (Kalfsia 

 deusia), which rather resembles a crustaceous lichen than 

 an Alga?, and which, common to the rocky shores of the 

 Northern Atlantic Ocean, from Iceland to France, spreads 

 over their surfaces in dark-brown crustaceous patches. 

 While young, these patches are orbicular and smooth, but 

 become irregular in outline when old, and are covered more 

 or less with wart- like prominences, occasionally even pre- 

 senting an exceedingly rugged surface, similar to the bark 

 of aged trees. 



Such are a few among the numerous families that com- 

 pose the series 3felanosper?nece, conspicuous either for utility 

 or beauty, large expansion or minuteness, Ranging through* 



