The ocean / By P.H. Gosse.

  • Philip Henry Gosse
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean / By P.H. Gosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to terrestrial plants. Two species in particular, named from this resemblance Sargassum aquifolium and S. ilicifolium, so closely imitate our common holly in their branches, berries, and twisted spinous leaves, as to induce a belief, at the first glance, that they are no other than sprigs of that familiar plant. Another species found in the same locality, is called S. Taxifolium, from its likeness to the yew. The former are highly interesting on another account: they afford a remarkable illustration of the fact, that the seed-receptacles of some sea-plants are metamorphosed after the discharge of their seeds into leaves and air vessels. Few would suspect that the round air-cells, that look like green berries, or the curled and thorny leaves, were alike the slender pro- cesses containing the seed, only in another stage of development; yet specimens are often found in which the process is actually going on, both the one and the other being but partially transformed. The pores with which the surface of the leaves are stud- ded, are but the orifices through which the seeds escaped. As we approach the Cape of Cood Hope, the sea- birds peculiar to high latitudes again appear, and the sea and air are enlivened by myriads of gulls, terns, petrels, frigate-birds, and albatrosses. But among them we have yet to notice one pre-eminent among them, a master-fisher, which, for its powers of consuming the finny prey is, perhaps, unrivalled. It is the Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus), which abounds all around the shores of the Indian Ocean, ranging to the distance of several hundred miles
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