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SCIENCE. 



SEA MOSSES— TIME AND PLACE FOR COL- 

 LECTING* 



Most collecting- on our Atlantic coast will be done 

 during the summer and early autumn months. But I 

 must remind those of you who live by the sea, or have it 

 accessible at all times, that many things of the greatest 

 beauty and interest will be missed if you do not go to 

 the shore early. Our finest Callithamnion C. Ameri- 

 canus can be had in its rarest beauty early in March and 

 even in February. The finest varieties of our Rhodo'- 

 niela subfusca are only to be found in the early spring 

 months. This is true of many other plants. You will 

 be surprised, also, to see what quantities of things you 

 can find as late as November and December. Indeed, 

 if you are to know these plants thoroughly, you must 

 collect them at all seasons of the year. Then you will 

 know when they come and when they go, and when they 

 are in their greatest perfection. Those living and col- 

 lecting on the Pacific coast are not fenced away by an 

 icy wall, as we are on our shores during two or three 

 months of our hard, inclement winters ; so they can col- 

 lect the year around. Dr. Anderson assures me that 

 most of them are more beautiful and of more luxuriant 

 growth during the Summer than during the Winter 

 months. In general, there are three principal places for 

 collecting " Sea Mosses " by the shore. 



First, from the mass of material which the sea throws 

 up upon the beaches, and leaves behind it when the tide 

 goes out. Tins will be your main resource for getting 

 the plants that grow in deep water. By many causes 

 they will be loosened from their holdings in the depths, 

 and will then float up to the surface and margin of the 

 sea, and will be cast on shore. By carefully turning over 

 these masses, which will be found along almost every 

 sandy or pebbly beach, you will be able to get plants 

 which could otherwise be found only by dredging in 

 deep water. And, by careful search, too, among this 

 material you will find all the deep water forms. 



Second, upon the rocks and in the tide pools when the 

 tide is out. 



You can collect living plants in their native homes 

 here only. Of course, no Alga; grow upon the sandy 

 beaches. You must, therefore, seek all such as grow be- 

 tween the tide-marks upon rocky shores. Put on a pair 

 of stout rubber boots, and go two or three hours before 

 low tide, and search in every place, following the tide 

 down to its farthest retreat. Many of the best things are 

 found close down by low water mark, and some a little 

 below that. These latter can be got best by taking ad- 

 vantage of the extreme low run of tide which comes 

 about "new" and "full moon." The advantage of go- 

 ing before low tide and following the retreating water 

 down is that you are not so apt to get a drenching, by 

 the unexpected advance of a great wave, as when the 

 tide is coming in ; for, if you are close by the water's 

 edge when the tide is rising, busily intent upon getting 

 your floral treasures, you will very likely find yourself 

 soaked with brine, for 



" The breaking waves dash high 

 On a stern and roek-bound coast." 



In hunting through the tidal region for plants, hunt 

 everywhere, and collect everything found growing, and 

 when collected, like Captain Cuttle, " make a note of it." 

 If you cannot remember without, carry a small memoran- 

 dum book and enter in it the habitat of each particular 

 kind as you collect it. The tide pools, that is, the little 

 basins in the rocks out of which the water is never 

 emptied, are the places where the choicest collecting may 

 be had. And the nearer they are to the low tide limits 

 the more likely they will be to have abundance of vegeta- 

 ble life in them. But do not fail to look, also, under the 

 overhanging curtain of " Rockweed " which shadows the 



* From Sea Mossei—hy A. B. Hhkvev — S. K. Cassino, Boston. 



perpendicular sides of the cliffs and great boulders. You 

 will often find some beautiful plants there, as, for in- 

 stance, the PtzJota elegans,X\\e. Cladophora rupestris and 

 other smaller " mosses." 



Third, by standing on some low, projecting reef, by the 

 side of which the tide currents rush in and out, you will 

 see many of the more delicate, deep water forms, all 

 spread out beautifully and displayed in all their native 

 grace, carried past, back and forth, in the water. Many 

 of these, like the Polysiphonia, are seldom thrown on 

 shore in good condition, or if they are, do not long re- 

 main so. This, therefore, is by far the best place to take 

 many of these plants. To do this you must be provided 

 with some simple instrument for reaching down into the 

 water, and seize them as they go floating by. I have 

 found nothing more convenient for this than a wire 

 skimmer, which can be got at any house-furnishing tin 

 shop, tied with a stout string to a light, strong stick, five or 

 six feet long. The water passes through the meshes of 

 this with little resistance, but the Alga, with its delicate 

 branches thrown out widely in every direction, is very 

 readily caught by it. It will also serve to a limited extent 

 as an implement for detaching plants from their hold- 

 ings which grow in deep tide pools, or in the sea, not too 

 far below low water mark. For the rest of your 



COLLECTING APPARATUS 

 you may have as little or as much as is convenient. A 

 simple basket or box, with a few newspapers in it to 

 wrap up and keep somewhat separate the different sorts of 

 your collectings, will do very well. If it is convenient, have 

 a case made with a half-dozen or less wide-mouthed bottles 

 set in it, each provided with a cork. The case should also 

 have a compartment for storing coarse plants, news- 

 papers, paper bags, or whatever you may use for keeping 

 different species, or the plants from different localities 

 separate. Then, as your plants are collected, they may 

 be roughly sorted and put in different bottles. But two 

 or three bottles should be reserved for the most delicate 

 and fragile forms. And as there are several of them 

 which rapidly perish on being exposed to the air, the bot- 

 tles should be kept partly filled with sea-water. The more 

 delicate Polysiplionias, the Calithamnions, Dasyas, and 

 some others, will need this protection. I have found a 

 quart fruit-jar very handy. I get the kind that I can 

 fasten a string around the neck, so as to carry it sus- 

 pended in one hand, which leaves the other always free to 

 gather in the plants with. A jar, whose cover goes on 

 and off with the least possible trouble, is the one to be 

 selected. The only disadvantage in using a receptacle of 

 this sort for your collection is that in climbing over the 

 wet and mossy rocks, your feet may chance to slip, and 

 you get a tumble ; then, in your efforts to save yourself, 

 you will forget all about your fragde glass jar, and will 

 smash it into a thousand pieces, upon the hard stones, 

 and perhaps lose your whole collection. But two or 

 three of these jars carefully packed in a basket, so 

 as not to be easily broken, would perhaps, furnish as 

 handy a collecting apparatus as you could extemporize 

 at the sea shore. 



MOUNTING AND PRESERVING. 



For " floating out " your " Sea Mosses," as it is called, 

 you should have a pair of pliers, a pair of scissors, a stick 

 like a common cedar " pen stalk," with a needle driven 

 into the end of it, or, in lack of that, any stick carefully 

 sharpened; two or three large, white dishes, like "wash 

 bowls," botanists drying paper, or common blotting-paper, 

 pieces of cotton cloth, old cotton is the best ; and the 

 necessary cards or paper for mounting the plants on. 



You will use the pliers in handling your plants in the 

 water. The scissors you will need for trimming off the 

 superfluous branches of plants which are too bushy to look 

 well, when spread upon the paper, and to cut away para- 

 sites. The needle should be driven point first, a consid- 

 erable distance into the stick, so as to make it firm, and 



