Sea-weeds are exquisite things and few people can resist the temptation to collect them when spending a vacation at the beach. When going on a collecting trip for these it is well to take a net and two pails, one small enough to hold the smaller things and carried inside the larger. A heavy knife may be useful, too. The best time is after the spring-tides, because at the lowest ebb of the water one may find forms of great beauty and brighter colours than elsewhere. The rocks, the rubbish left by the tide, the pools, the piles, the sea-wall, the surface of the waves themselves, are all good places to look for sea-weeds. They are fewer on sandy beaches than elsewhere. They vary in size from great, coarse, leathery rock-weeds to those so delicate as hardly to be seen at all. Sea-weeds are real plants, belonging to that great group of non-flowering plants mentioned before. They are called algæ. They do not have true stems and leaves, neither do they feed by means of roots. Many of them are so shaped that they appear to have stems, roots, and leaves, but as these parts do not do the work of true stems, roots, and leaves they are not classed as such. The root-like parts of a sea weed are usually simply hold-fasts, which anchor the plant to the rocks. Algæ which live in sea-water get their nourishment from the water which washes their entire surface. When collecting algæ, every specimen which is intended for immediate mounting should be kept continuously in sea-water. This is what the pails are for. Every part of the plant should be taken, as the attachment to the rocks is as valuable as the rest. The knife is useful here, or a staff with a metal point, for scraping the weeds off the rocks. The natural element of the sea plant is sea-water. Do not put your specimens into fresh water even to wash or rinse them, as they will lose some of their beauty. Unless dried soon after gathering they will decay and fade. In collecting, try and get plants of various sizes even though they look alike. The larger ones may be in the fruiting stage. Do your mounting out of doors if possible, where you can have all the basins of sea-water you want and need not be careful about spilling.