Fig. 9. Pterygotus bilobus.

Fig. 10. Terminal tail joint of Pterygotus acuminatus.

Fig. 11. The smaller one is Limulus just hatched, natural size, mere out. line; the larger is the same undergoing the first moult, and leaving the old shell, and having a tail.

Fig. 12. Limulus Polyphemus, one year old. The markings on the posterior carapace become less distinct with adult age. The adult female will attain a size even exceeding twelve inches across the cephalic shield.

Fig. 13. Eurypterus remipes; size very much reduced.

Fig. 14. Sao hirsutus, a trilobite.

THE SEA-WEEDS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

BY JOHN L. RUSSELL.

THE vegetable productions of the ocean, like those of the drier portions of the earth, are subject to a similar order of distribution. The most common collector of plants becomes soon aware that there are kinds which are not to be looked for in ordinary places, and soon learns to set a value on those which rarely occur to him. He also desires to extend the area of his observations so as to embrace different latitudes, or to obtain the same results by ascending lofty mountain heights. So the collector of sea-weeds does not confine himself to particular districts, but endeavors, either by personal inspection or else through the labor and courtesy of others, to ascertain what forms, seemingly familiar or entirely diverse, may grow abroad. The deeper soundings of the ocean-beds, like the higher elevations of the land, afford him a greater variety, affected by different causes, which in their natural course produce different results.

The general plan of vegetable life, especially in the lower plants, seems to point to constant modification of some one typical form, and this modification appears to have its origin in climatic influences. It becomes a most fascinating study to endeavor to join the separate and divided links so as to

possess, in a series of specimens, the probable method of development which nature has thus instituted. Let me endeavor to adapt this idea to the thoughts of this present essay, and arrange to some extent the sea-weeds (Algo) of our own and of foreign or distant coasts together. Let us see in what kinds there are corresponding ones; and when we select some choice specimen from the beach-drift, or pluck it from the rocks, endeavor to tell on what distant strand it is obedient to the pulsing waves, or perchance attracts other eyes.

The coast of New England presents as great a diversity in outline and in character as perhaps can be found in the same length of the Atlantic shore. We have here the deep inlets like Norwegian fiords in Maine; the bold rocky promontories of Massachusetts varied with the almost level and smooth sands of the South. The noblest in size, as well as most beautiful in color and features, are the algae which are to be met with throughout this wide range. The would-be successful collector must resort to the dredging apparatus, and like the shell collector needs a strong arm and abundance of patient toil to serve him; else he must wait some violent storm, which shall break from their deeper moorings those more valuable weeds which only can grow perfectly and develop themselves entirely far below the surface, where the sun's rays but feebly penetrate and the water is of a nearly uniform temperature. Some wonderful waifs are occasionally met with in this way by visiting the beaches and picking over the waste with scrupulous care. In the warmer waters of the Southern States, like those on the Florida Keys, there may be sought singular kinds resembling corals, for which they were formerly mistaken by Lamouroux, some of exquisite beauty in design and shape. Some of these are found growing from the base of a Gorgonia or sea-fan, and secreting from the ocean their covering of lime. And others of richest green creep over the sand beneath the water, and throw up a turf as verdant as that which clothes

the most luxuriant pastures. This field of botanical enquiry is yet open, and many a desirable harvest can be reaped, from season to season, out of the treasures of the deep, and the yet undiscovered or little known species of New England attract the deserved attention of the casual visitor or of the sedulous student.

Let then the season be summer, the warm days of June, when many people as naturally resort to the seaside as if the custom were instinctive and migratory. To some the scenery is the same and familiar, and the cool air is the main thing to be realized; to others, though familiar yet ever new, and to others every object, however minute, is novel. The very rocks and cliffs are different in looks, composition and general features; the sand composed of curious minerals, tiny shells and comminuted fragments; the wild flowers wierd and unusual; the thick leaved and prickly seeded plants thriving within the spray's reach; the beach cumbered with productions of the sea-mineral, animal, vegetable— thrown in wild confusion. Who, for the first time, is not moved with wonder at these sea-weeds? Who would not wish to become better acquainted? And no wonder so many are gathered, floated out into shape, dried, pressed and carefully laid away, silent witnesses that beauty and utility are often combined where little dreamed of. The interest increases with each coming season; the practised eye soon learns to discriminate; the cultivated taste finds the most propitious time of the year for collecting, and such trifles, employed at first to while away an hour or two, are often found indispensable and auxiliary to the very enjoyment of life.

Suppose we start on a walk for some gravelly beach contiguous to some town or city, and removed from it by the interventions of wild pastures, rocky and almost desolate, or by some level, wide extended marsh. At any season of the year, when walking is practicable, the botanist who accompanies you, can point out abundant objects of interest long before you come within sea range. The intervening

space proves not so dreary or desolate as it appears, for often our most interesting and best friends have the rudest exterior. Perhaps he knows something about the lichens, those dull green, grayish, yellow, bright orange, black crusts, scales, fringes, torn, ragged felts; or perchance those dry, crisp, brittle, crimson tipped, blunt tipped, sharp pointed, branching anomalies which cover many an acre of sterility where nothing else grows, and where the surfaces of rocks and the rough bark of trees cannot offer them any chance. He will be able to introduce you through these desiccated and seemingly lifeless plants, the lineal descendants of the first forms of vegetation which appeared on the dry and solid earth, to the wonderful and more grotesque, more developed, sometimes enormous sea-weeds which, at the birth of Creation, sprung into activity as plants in the "waters which covered the face of the deep." Nay, you need not heed these unless you choose, although within every one of them lies enfolded a wondrous tale, locking up in the recesses of their natures, health and healing and joy. Notice too as you walk, the fair flowers springing up on every side. If autumn, or early winter, a bright October's day or a green Christmas, you may yet find for your admiration such seed-vessels, such starry calyces, such feathered down, such inimitable trifles as no gold could purchase or art fabricate.

Such rough and confused pasture lands lie between Rockport and the sea; between Gloucester, between Marblehead, Cohasset, Scituate and many famous places, and the beating ocean. By the very marge of one such beach I have found plants seen nowhere else by me except on mountain sides. Think of Rockport in July, lovely in the masses of mountain laurel, and this fine native shrub opening its clusters of flowers within sight of the very sea. From the land

side the very odors of Araby the Blest come over the Manchester and Gloucester waters from the magnolia, and gladdens the heart of the returning fisherman. The very rocks, worn smooth by the surf and rounded and polished, extend

just so far inland, which the closely attached lichen defines by its persistence in bright yellow colors in the strict line of terrestrial and maritime growth. They stand there patient sentinels to denote that the floods shall no more cover the earth; the lichen the earth's plant, and the alga the sea's plant, approximate and almost kiss each other in approach. Nothing higher in the scale of organization ventures so near; not the sedge, bulrush or hardiest grass dare grow so close to the waves. Nor are lichen and alga far removed in consanguinity; in structural difference something; some more exposure to sun and rain, to snow and ice, to heat and cold, in existence and continued individual life vastly more in favor of the little crusted slow-growing lichen, patient, untiring, serenely beautiful, doing by day and night its usual work and breaking down the hardest and most obdurate rock formations by the gentlest persuasion of its constant presence to aid the atmospheric influences.

The algae are so diverse in their forms, and so many in number, computing only the precise kinds or species, to say nothing of innumerable varieties, many of which have been separately and minutely described, that in order to facilitate the labor of finding out what they are it has been found best to divide them into three great groups known by the color of their seed-vessels. But as it is not always possible to find their seed-vessels, or even those minuter parts which though not seeds serve for similar purposes, because like other plants, and what we call flowers or flowering plants, these too have particular seasons of the year when they produce them, so to look for strawberries after the vines have done bearing would be precisely like looking for seed-vessels on sea-weeds when they had passed the season. Some kinds, too, like some other and higher plants never bear any seeds in our latitudes, but such seed bearing plants must be sought elsewhere. Fortunately in this dilemma the chances of success are in our favor, and the usual color of the sea-weed corresponds with the color of the seed it bears. The rosy or