in the Pacific, <^c. 91 



passing over them, I could compare their appearance to noth- 

 ing but a pavement thickly strewn with bouquets of beautiful 

 flowers. 



At a depth of three or four fathoms, the forms were as man- 

 ifold as their coloration, some branching like beautiful shrub- 

 bery, others spreading out like the most delicate mosses, and 

 others again resembling beds of saffron, or daisies and ama- 

 ranths, while in and out of, above and between the thickets 

 of these Neptunian gardens, sported thousands of splendidly 

 colored fishes, from not more than an inch to two or three 

 feet in length. A large bright scarlet Diacope (D. Tiea, Les- 

 son) a Julis about a foot long, of a rich bluish green, marked 

 with blood red bands crossing the back to the lateral line, and 

 intersected by others extending from the opercles to the tail, 

 (/. quadricolor, Less.) Serrani, Scari, Glyphisodons, Chasto- 

 dons, Balistes and Holocentri, all richly adorned, were some 

 of the most conspicuous in the bright array. The water was 

 so transparent that the smallest object on the bottom could be 

 seen as distinctly as if it were not throe feet from the surface ; 

 and gazing down upon the beautiful creatures that tenanted 

 these coral groves, like Coleridge's "Ancient Marinere," '-'I 

 blessed them unawares" — althou2:h the next moment I could 

 not avoid wishing to coax them into my net. As a drawback 

 however, upon all this beauty, silently but swiftly, near the 

 surface, glided in shoals, the spectral and malignant, -'raven- 

 ing salt sea shark," reminding one of satan's intrusion of his 

 hiteful presence amid the bowers of Paradise. So fierce were 

 these tigers of the deep, that they repeatedly seized hold of 

 the oars as we pulled toward the reef ; rendering the attempt 

 to reach by swimming (often the only chance) a coast thus 

 sentinelled, rather a hazardous afiair. 



The solid, massive and encrusting genera of corals which 

 enter most largely into the composition of the reefs, appear to 

 flourish best in exposed situations and violently agitated wa- 

 ters. On the upper plateau the coral has generally a stunted, 

 dwarfish appearance, and the branching genera predominate 

 over the more showy Astraeas. Near its edge, and lining the 

 crevices, certain Goniopores, Porites and Pavonias, spread 



