Living diatoms are often found clinging in great numbers to filamentous algae, or forming gelatinous masses on various submerged plants. Cladophora is frequently covered with Cocconeis, an elliptically shaped diatom; Vaucheria is often covered with small forms. Other algae will pay for examination, especially if they look brown. If stones in the water have a brown, slippery coating, you can be sure of diatoms. Sometimes the brown coating on sticks and stones is so abundant that it streams out with the current. If rushes and stems of water plants have a brown, gelatinous coating, you are likely to find millions of specimens of the same diatom. The surface mud of a pond, ditch, or lagoon will always yield some diatoms. They can be made to come out from the mud by putting a black paper around the jar and letting direct sunlight fall upon the surface of the water. The diatoms, in a day or even less, will come to the top in a scum which can be easily secured.
Since diatoms form an important part of the food of molluscs, tunicates, and fishes, the alimentary tracts of these animals often yield deep-water forms which are not easily secured in any other way.
Fresh-water diatoms appear in greatest abundance in spring, are comparatively scarce in summer, and reappear in autumn, though not so abundantly as in the spring.
Marine forms can be secured by scraping barnacles, oyster shells, and other shells. The big Strombus shell from the West Indies, which we use to keep the door open, will yield a good collection if you get it before it is cleaned.
The silicious shells of diatoms are among the most beautiful objects which could be examined with the microscope. To obtain perfectly clean mounts requires considerable time and patience, but when the material is once cleaned, preparations may be made at any time with very little trouble.
Note : This is from
Methods in Plant Histology from the 1900th. Handle with care!
This is nice, but what is a diatom, anyway? -- Janet Davis
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