OR, GLIMPSES BENEATH THE WATERS. 



parasitica^ growing on a small mass of pale snl- 

 phur-coloured Melohesia lichenoides^ tlie Lichen-like 

 Melobesia. To the extreme left, under the beau- 

 tiful Rhodynienia, is a small branch of the bright, 

 olive-tinted JEctocarpus tomentosus^ looking much 

 like a spray of wild Broom, and immediately below 

 it, a few purple branchlets of Gracilaria confer- 

 voides ; while in the left foreground lies a pebble, 

 partly covered by a small plant of Zonaria parvula^ 

 from beneath which straggles a little branch of the 

 common but pretty Coralline, the Corallina offici- 

 nalis; and, to the right, a globe of the curious Co- 

 dium bursa, of the French coast, which might easily 

 be added to our native species in the Aquarium, 



Such are a few of our beautiful coast Algce, 

 all of which I would advise the admirers of the 

 beauties of the marine Aquarium to try; and if 

 some refuse, in the present state of our knowledge 

 of their habits and requirements, to make them- 

 selves happy in their pretty ^'crystal palace," 

 choosing rather to consider it a prison of glass," 

 still a good n amber of them, I am persuaded, may 

 be coaxed into displaying their beauties very geni- 

 ally within its transparent walls, which admit the 

 bright sun rays as freely as the pale-green liquid 

 glass which forms their native element. 



49 E 



