Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/95

76 And now we may enliven the appearance of the Aquarium, by adding some seaweeds preparatory to stocking it with such animals as may be most desirable,—nor is this portion of our operations lightly to be passed over, for on its proper regulation depends almost entirely success or failure. The collection of materials will afford much pleasure and healthy exercise, and when they are flourishing and spreading out their delicate fronds in the waters of our tank, we can recall with delight the rambles we had in search of them.

The green Seaweeds are the most desirable, not only as Dr. Badham remarks on account of their great beauty, but because they do not, like the red or brown kinds, render the water turbid by decomposition, and what a glorious selection we have on these shores!!—the feathery Bryopsis, looking under a microscope like spun glass, the ribbony Ulva, the green bullion-shaped tassels of Codium tomentosum, fringing the sides of the rock-pools— you will have to bare your arms to reach them,—the many varieties of Caulerpa, Enteromorpha,—the lovely Apjohnia lætevirens, which extends along the whole Southern coast,—the glassy Cladophora, with a host of others. In the use of Red Algæ, the experimenter must take his chance,—any way he must have many failures; but there is one, the Griffithsia, which Dr. Harvey recommends, and there is nothing to compare with it for beauty. The pools about Queenscliff, St. Kilda, Warrnambool, Armstrong's Bay near Port Fairy, Portland, and other of our Sea coasts, will afford abundance of specimens in addition to those already enumerated, which are the best to