GREGSON : ALGvE HUNTIFG. 



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tlie great landing stage to go on board tlie fine steamer tlie " Ehlana^^ which 

 had been chartered to convey the party to Llandudno and Puffin Island, for 

 a day with nature and art. It is not my purpose to say how nobody was 

 sea-sick or how everybody enjoyed themselves, how lake-like the sea was, 

 or how magnificent the scenery, how hungry the whole party were, at eleven 

 a.m. when launch was served, or rather when everybody who could get at it 

 helped themselves as long as it lasted. I only know one little member 

 refused to part with a nor-west quarter of a large Melton Mowbray pie for a 

 famishing lady, when he had secured the power of boxing the compass 

 round it, and I almost wished the great ship would just give one of her best 

 lurches ; just one, in half-an-hour that the fishes might have got the whole 

 pie at second-hand ; and, I need not tell how anxious everybody to the 

 number of three hundred and fifty were to go ashore at Llandudno, or how 

 jolly the fifty or so were, who intent upon exploring Puffin Island remained 

 on board to proceed there ; some gun in hand, with hearts and hopes big 

 enough to expect at least a great-auk in this little known and fearfully 

 exposed island ; others preparing dredging apparatus, with a will as though, 

 it was the first day of the oyster season ; whilst satchels for plants, and geo- 

 logical hammers and chisels were to be seen peeping out of pockets, where 

 little expected j and lastly, the Algologists were seen busy cutting newspapers 

 into nice square pieces to be ready for work the moment the ships-boat landed 

 them on the island ; it is with these I have to do just now, and to give the 

 results of about two hours work by Mr. Marratt and myself. 



I was very properly barred out for competing for the prizes offered by 

 the Club for the greatest number of species collected during the day 

 because I had taken higher prizes, and this was an advantage to me, as it 

 gave me an opportunity of looking for plants, obscure, little known, or diffi- 

 cult to get at, whilst I knew my friend would do his best to obtain numbers 

 of species, and by this division of labour the following results have been 

 obtained. 



Puffin Island is composed of carboniferous lime stone and the 

 shelving side on which we landed is being rapidly abraded to high 

 tide mark forming little rock-pools in thousands, six to ten inches in diameter 

 and from four to six inches deep ; especially so on the upper faces of the 

 Producius beds where the shells seem to decay first ; then begins a hole, 

 which increases as the rock decreases, and in these holes grow many species 

 of Algoi, especially Ceramidce, Cladojphorce, and Enteromorphce, but my 

 attention was principally given to a few deep rock-pools in which Laminaria 



