CORAL JUNGLES OF SEA-COW REEF 



everywhere, and our eyes were flooded with im- 

 prisoned rainbows and spectrums. The flower 

 worms, buried deep in the stony Hme, glowed with 

 hues from red to violet, their clustered gills reveal- 

 ing concentric rings of color like those of our 

 grandmother's bouquets; the sea shells, dirty white 

 outside, when opened glowed with sunset pink 

 and opalescence; crabs were hiding in filched shells, 

 which in turn were in coral chambers from which 

 there was no escape, and the colors of their legs 

 and eyes defied human names ; mantis-shrimps im- 

 prisoned behind zenana-like windows of the sponge 

 gratings, reflected, from antennae tips to telson 

 edge, all the subtle shades and hues which dodge 

 in and out between the primary and secondary 

 colors of the earth. 



On Sea-cow Reef where the corals thin out, 

 there appeared in force the more pliant ferns and 

 nets, fans and plumes of gorgonias. Tall, slender 

 clumps had exactly the manner of growth of 

 candelabra cactus, but covered with a dense polyp 

 fur of clove brown. Some of the fluflSest stung 

 at a touch, and, at the same touch, withdrew every 

 polyp, leaving bare the rich purple trunk and 

 branches, — an emotional autumn of fear which 

 swept over the full-blown foliage swiftly as a 

 shadow. Indeed, a shadow alone will work magic 

 with supersensitive polyp tentacles, and the animal 

 forests shaded by the hull of my boat floating 

 overhead, were, judged by the foliage of terrestrial 

 plants, a month behind their fellows in the sun. 



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