24 



in Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. 9, p. 468. Johnston's Brit. Zooph., 

 p. 132, pi. xi., fig. 2. 2. 



Hab. On the steins of the larger fuci, common. Whit- 

 sand hay, Looe, Goran, Mevagisscy, Veryan hay, Polperro, 

 Mount's bay. 



The name of Sea Hair, applied to this species, is very 

 characteristic of its general appearance, and to an inattentive 

 observer it would pass for something of the kind, as it lies 

 exposed on the shore. It grows plentifully all round our 

 rocky shores on the stalks of the larger sea weed, a little 

 beyond low water mark. On the south eastern parts of 

 our coast, it occurs most commonly as short, delicate hair- 

 like fibres on the stalks of the Laminaria digitata, and rarely- 

 exceeding an inch and half in height ; but frequently after 

 a storm, clumps, as large as a child's fist, are washed ashore 

 from deep water. About Mevagissey, Goran, and west of 

 the Deadman point in Veryan bay, it occurs in masses as 

 large as a child's head, or even larger. Mr. Peach of Goran 

 has some very fine specimens in his collection, and I have 

 some equally fine, from the same neighbourhood. I have 

 been informed that several years ago, many cartloads of this 

 Zoophyte were drawn on shore in a trawl net at Mevagissey 

 and sold as manure; whether this is true or not, it is cer- 

 tainly more abundant and finer there, than on any other part 

 of our coast that I have examined. It is of a vandyke 

 brown colour, very slender and elegantly waved. Its off- 

 shoots are numerous, alternate and of equal size to the first. 

 It does not like the rest of the species of this genus, give off 

 its branches from a continuous trunk, but the offsets fre- 

 quently become the continuations of the height of the 

 polypidoro. It is divided at short intervals by imperfect 

 septa ; the internodes join each other in straight lines, but in 

 consequence of their being so slender, they yield to each 

 other, and give the polvpidom a zig-zag or gently waved 

 appearence. The cells are opposite, in single pairs on each 

 internode, and attached through the greater part of their 

 extent ; their apertures, are not everted like those of the 

 others of this genus, but look upwards ; the external edge of 

 the aperture is continued into a slender acule point, and has 

 beside two large lateral teeth. The vesicles are irregularly 

 distributed over the polypidom, of a long egg-form; the in- 

 ferior portion is pedunculated, the superior truncated with an 

 operculum, and they are most plentifully produced from 

 December to April. In the figure of this species given by 

 Ellis in his essay on Corallines, the lateral teeth of the cells 

 are omitted because the specimen was not " placed in a side 

 view lor the painter when it was drawn." 



