282 THE SEA-WEEDS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
connect a delightful remembrance with stagnant pools and 
still waters in my mind. In this pretty aquatic the joints 
are united at their ends into regular pentagonal or hexagonal 
meshes, and form a tubular 
net which floats in the water. 
Turning again towards the 
sea let us look into these 
salt pools among the cliffs, 
some shallow and others 
deep and lined with exquis- 
itely colored alge too. Cer- 
tainly, so far as looks go, 
some of these verdant and 
glossy silks should be Con- 
ferve, but having been in- 
structed better by the lens 
let us see what it will do for’ 
us here. This flossy silk, 
how delieately and grace- 
fully it floats just under the 
Cheetomorpha. surfuce, but a little of it 
lifted into the air collapses in a very ungrateful way. Yes! 
you have gone out of the realm of the Conferve and only 
resemblances occur. Thus your floss silk, so entangling, 
inelegant in the air, shows its elegant proportions and finer 
divisions in its native elements and in water of a denser me- 
dium. It is a tuft of a true maritime Chlorosperm (fig. 71), 
one of a very large genus, and as Professor Harvey tells us, 
difficult to define; so we must be content with our present 
knowledge to observe and admire. Some tufts of darker 
green colored and bristle-like jointed filaments stand stiffly 
in the water; they are worth gathering, and bear the name 
of Chotomorpha, or Bristle alga; the most common with us 
is the Melagonium, but several others may be found on the 
New England shores and the Mediterranean, the Canary 
Isles, Algiers, New Holland, Tropical America and the East 
