Now the delicate part of the process is reached. Have a number of square pieces of unglazed paper at hand—ribbon paper is very good for the purpose—and thrust them carefully into the water under the bit of moss you desire to take out. With a long, slender darning-needle carefully arrange the tiny filaments, so that they shall form a graceful composition, and raise the card carefully from the water. It is not necessary to exercise as much care with the coarser “silver mosses,” as their more wiry branchlets naturally assume graceful positions, and the water flowing from the surface of the card does not so easily disarrange their positions. When all the mosses have been taken up on cards, fasten each to a table or shelf to dry. This is done by driving a pin through one corner of the card into the edge of the shelf or table, and allowing it to remain undisturbed until both the moss and paper are perfectly dry. They may now be mounted upon cards prepared for the purpose, and their names, with the locality where they were found, neatly written beneath; or they may be preserved in a case or frame.
The illustrations show two different arrangements of sea-mosses for the frame. In the first, that seen in Fig. 1, they are glued upon a background of fine white cardboard, one layer superimposed above another, until they extend forward from the card for an inch or more. Their stems are finally covered by a small, well-striped scallop-shell which has been washed clean and varnished. It is perhaps needless to add that the effect is very pretty. The “silver mosses” are best adapted for this arrangement.
The design given in Fig. 2 is quite grotesque in its appearance, and appeals rather more to the average boy’s taste than the former arrangement. Red and brown mosses are used entirely, unless the effect seems too somber, in which case a little “silver moss” may be introduced on the back to lighten it a trifle.
Tiny baskets, made of pretty scallop-shells nicely fitted together and varnished, are often filled with the coarser varieties of moss, and are very pretty; but if they are unprotected from the dust they are soon destroyed, and unless covered with a glass case or inverted thin plain glass tumbler, they hardly pay for the trouble of making.