Dulse was set upon his table, to the great horror of his friends, who wondered how any one could possibly relish a seaweed.

The Icelanders too, would be very sorry to be without Dulse. They prepare it by washing it in spring water, and then exposing it to dry,

when it becomes covered over with a fine white powder. This powder is very good to eat, and they pack it up in casks to keep, as we should do flour. It is eaten with fish and butter, or according to the taste of the richer classes, boiled in milk, and mixed with a little flour of rye.

Cattle are very fond of Dulse, and seek for it with the greatest eagerness. Sometimes at low water, an unfortunate sheep will go so far from home in search of it, and stay so long upon the shore, as to be surrounded by the tide, and even to be washed away. On this account the plant has been called the Sheep's Dulse.

The Dulse is of a fine red color, and is named Rhodomenia, from two Greek words, one of which means red, and the other a membrane. In shape it resembles the palm of a hand, with leaves growing all round it, like so many fingers. The seeds are collected into spots, or little clouds, and are scattered irregularly all over the surface of the frond.

The Carrageen or Irish Moss is a seaweed, and the Irish peasants make of it a very dainty dish. It abounds on all the rocky shores of Britain, and is only called Irish, because it was first put to use in Ireland. The way to prepare it is very

* Chondrus Crispus.

simple. The water in which it has been boiled is carefully strained from the moss, and boiled over again with milk and sugar, and some kind of spice, such as cinnamon and nutmeg. It is then poured into a shape, and very soon becomes firm like blancmange. When eaten with cream, nothing can be more delicious, and it is thought remarkably nourishing for invalids. The frond of the Irish moss varies more than any seaweed: in shape it is generally flat, and cut into branches, but these are often cut again at their points, and the segments curl up like a frill. The seeds are arranged in round capsules, that rise up on one side of the frond, and cause a depression or hollow place on the other.

But there is one seaweed,* which though not eaten by itself, forms part of a luxury in great request among the Chinese. A bird called the esculent swallowt feeds upon it, and after digesting it into a jelly-like mass, brings it up, and makes her nest of it. She does not complete her little habitation until the end of two months, and when finished, it is composed of delicate filaments united together by a transparent jelly.

Strange as it may seem to us, these nests are

*Gelidium.

+ Hirundo esculenta.

eaten in China as a great luxury, and so highly prized as to be sold for their weight in gold. Indeed, to say that a person eats birds' nests is equivalent to saying he is a grandee, or a very rich man. They are insipid in themselves, and have no more taste than isinglass; but the Chinese serve them up in soups, and all manner of made dishes, and no entertainment is thought to be very grand without them.

As if the bird foresaw that her nest would be so eagerly sought after, she places it in the most inaccessible caverns, situated in cliffs overhanging the sea. The nests adhere together, and are arranged in rows one above the other, upon the damp and slippery sides of the cavern. They are taken twice a year, and the finest and whitest are those newly built, and in which no eggs have ever been laid.

The men, who venture on the hazardous employment of taking the nests, are trained to it from their earliest youth. In Java they never begin the work without sacrificing a buffalo, and repeating a number of prayers. They then anoint their bodies with oil, and prepare for their expedition, as men who are uncertain whether they shall ever again see the light of day. They make the descent of many hundred

feet down the face of the cliff, on ladders of bamboo, carrying torches made of a particular kind of gum, that exudes from a tree in the neighbourhood, and the flame of which is not easily extinguished by the vapours in the cave. All the time they are going down, the sea is roaring beneath them, and dashing against the rocks with a deafening noise. Nor is the danger over, when they have safely reached the cave, for the surf rolls tumultuously in, and should they lose their footing, one false step would plunge them into the abyss. When the nests have been procured with so much risk and trouble, they are simply dried, packed in boxes, and sent to Canton, for the consumption of the emperor, and his court.

The ingenious Chinese make use of another seaweed for a variety of purposes. They first reduce it to a transparent glue, and then cut it into lozenge-shaped pieces for their window panes. The windows, I should tell you, are formed of a lattice-work of bamboo, and these lozenge-shaped pieces entirely fill up the spaces between, and serve the purpose of glass.

They also employ this same glue for strengthening and varnishing the paper of their lanterns.

Fucus tenax.