120 COMMON SEAWEEDS. 



that is used for its safety and instantaneous retreat. 

 By the action of muscles of indescribable delicacy, 

 concealed in little warts or feet, the Serpala can throw 

 out bundles of bristles, and on the back of each foot 

 is a row of microscopic hooks which catch the lining 

 of its tube, and enable it to draw in or out. These 

 hooks are toothed ; each little creature carries about 

 1,900 such upon its corslet, and no fewer than 14,000 

 teeth are fashioned and finished for the use of this 

 atom in creation. Think of this ere you drop the 

 frond as unfit for a lady's album : it is a page recording 

 God's infinite care for the meanest of His creatures. 



Lamifaria Sacchabista. — The single, olive yellow, 

 semi-transparent frond, when young, is quite fit for 

 the book of seaweeds, preserving its colour and ad- 

 hering pretty well to paper. It well deserves its 

 name " Saccharine," from the abundance of sweet 

 mannite or manna which is secreted in its cells. This 

 was discovered by Dr. Stenhouse some years ago : lie 

 took a quantity of this seaweed and macerated it in a 

 particular way called " digesting" in hot water, which 

 formed it into a brownish sweetish mucilage. When 

 evaporated, it left a considerable quantity of saline 

 semi-crystalline substance. This was reduced to pow- 

 der and treated with alcohol, by which a considerable 

 portion of it was dissolved. This solution yielded, on 

 cooling, large hard prisms of fine silky lustre, very 

 beautiful, purely white as loaf sugar, and almost as 

 sweet. This is mannite, and is, doubtless, much appre- 

 ciated by the "water babies," and relished by the 

 plumed molluscs who live upon these fronds. 



