Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/268

Rh the pencil of Mrs. Johnston I had been in the habit of admiring, in her husband's admirable "History of British Zoophytes."

It was on the 3rd of October, that I detached, at that sort of little natural pier that I have described under the Nothe cliffs, a frond of Fucus serratus with a bushy tuft of Rhodomela subfusca growing parasitically on it. To one of the branchlets of the latter plant a little mass of jelly was adhering, which, on my dropping the branch into a phial of water, presently expanded, and I had the pleasure of seeing the bell-like form of Lucernaria auricula. It was a very young specimen, not much more than one eighth of an inch in height; but I had got a clue to the search, and I subsequently obtained through the month of October many more. In spite of the gales and seas, I managed to drag up a good deal of the Fucus, which is hereabout profusely fringed with Rhodomela, and also with Ceramium rubrum; and on these, as also occasionally on the Fucus itself, and once or twice on Padina, I found the Lucernariæ.

My mode of examination was as follows. Collecting a basketful of the tufts at random, I brought them home; then one by one I waved them to and fro, in the Tank of water, between my eye and the light, whereby the animals became distinctly discernible, and were easily detached. Sometimes four or five were scattered over one tuft of the parasitic plant, and it was rare to find a Rhodomela of any size, without one at least.

The specimens were evidently the young of the season; many were no larger than I have named; but