452 Notes on Natural Objects 



At two o'clock, the first morning, we were in motion ; and, 

 after two or three hours' wading, we were again in our tent 

 before the dawn of day. The person on whom devolves the 

 charge of striking the fish wades between two others carrying 

 large torches, formed of a blazing resinous aromatic wood 

 found abundantly in the vicinity. On a calm night, when the 

 surface is unruffled, it is a beautiful spectacle, by the aid of 

 this borrowed light, to see, through the clear sparkling water, 

 the white bottom of coral sand, and the tufts of various 

 sponges waving with each movement of the waters, and the 

 varied forms of the living corals, like the plants and flowers 

 in a parterre : here a dark group of large Echini, with their 

 long spines, black as ebony, sharp as needles, and dangerous 

 to the foot of the fisherman, occupying some deeper pool, 

 aloof from the yet larger grey .Echini, with short spines, 

 moving amongst the coral ; there, within a few feet, his back 

 level with the surface, groping amidst a cluster of waving 

 i^uei, feeds the gigantic lobster, destined to be our prize ; 

 here we note the huge conger eel, stealthily drawing beneath 

 his covert of arborescent madrepores ; and, anon, we hasten 

 after a retreating fish, which proves to be that bloated ugly 

 animal they term a sea hog. Fishes of smaller size dar: 

 swiftly around, hastening to deeper water, if not intercepted 

 in their flight by a stroke of the machete, or cutlass, of the 

 torch-bearer. Some of them, confounded by the unwonted 

 light of the blazing brands, suffer themselves to be readily 

 surprised. Among these we numbered the beautiful green 

 pipe-fish or bill-fish ; the runco, or grunter, a fish with golden 

 scales and bright blue stripes ; the little striped fish called the 

 old wife ; and, a more valuable prize, the gato, or cat-fish. 

 Here, also, we encountered some large species of Sepia, an 

 animal whose flexible arms are surrounded with powerful 

 suckers, by which at will it adheres to any substance with 

 which it comes in contact : and woe be to the unlucky wight 

 on whose legs it may fasten. It possesses, when struck or 

 alarmed, the power of discharging a black fluid, probably 

 like that of which the Indian ink is made by the Chinese. 



And, now, having waded a mile or two in the shallows, it 

 is time to visit the reef, ere the rising tide covers it too deeply. 



Here, too, is a beautiful exhibition of the works of Nature, 

 exemplified in the wondrous labours of the various tribes of 

 zoophytes ; each labouring on, like the honey-bee in the con- 

 struction of its comb, guided by some undeviating law or 

 impulse, and each proceeding, from generation to generation, 

 and century after century, to rear those beautiful and sym- 

 metrical fabrics, from the depths of the waters, and amidst 



