Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/177

136 fans of our little friends again. Though I instituted careful examinations of the spots indicated at intervals of two or three days, it was almost the last of May before I could detect the minute thing springing from the mud in the tepid pool. Others however, soon appeared, and grew fast, so that by the middle of July numerous beds of them were to be found, in which the plants had attained almost their full dimensions, the fronds varying from one to two inches in diameter, Mr. Thompson has endeavoured to propagate this pretty Alga with entire success; collecting the fronds from their native site, when fully ripe, he scattered them in similar situations all along the shore; so that now, under Sandsfoot Castle, and on the ledges between this and Byng Cliff, and in a little bight of the rocks below the Nothe, there are what I may call flourishing gardens of the Padina, fully established, and needing no further care for their perpetuity.

It is a curious and interesting Alga, not only for its singular form, but because of its texture, which is delicately membranous, its colour, which is pale whitish olive or drab, marked with numerous concentric bands or zones, its surface, which is covered with a fine whitish deciduous powder, and its circular margin (often split), which is fringed with a line of very minute hairs, set at an angle from the plane of the frond. The sides of the frond frequently curve inward and form scrolls. The specimens will live a good while in the Aquarium: they are somewhat difficult to dislodge in a growing state, owing to the extreme tenuity and tenderness of their point of attachment, and to the