THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN. 



241 



modestly embellish the flat bottom, looking like beds of variegated 

 Ranunculuses. Around the blossoms of the coral shrubs play the 

 humming-birds of the ocean, little fish sparkling with red or blue 

 metallic glitter, or gleaming in golden green, or in the brightest 

 silvery lustre. 



674. " Softly, like spirits of the deep, the delicate milk-white 

 or bluish bells of the jelly-fishes float through this charmed world. 

 Here the gleaming violet and gold-green Isabelle, and the flaming 

 yellow, black, and vermilion-striped Coquette, chase their prey ; 

 there the band-fish shoots, snake-like, through the thicket, like a 

 long silver ribbon, glittering with rosy and azure hues. Then 

 come the fabulous cuttle-fish, decked in all colors of the rainbow, 

 but marked by no definite outline, appearing and disappearing, in- 

 tercrossing, joining company and parting again, in most fantastic 

 ways ; and all this in the most rapid change, and amid the most 

 wonderful play of light and shade, altered by every breath of wind, 

 and every slight curling of the surface of the ocean. When day 

 declines, and the shades of night lay hold upon the deep, this fan- 

 tastic garden is lighted up in new splendor. Millions of glowing 

 sparks, little microscopic Medusas and Crustaceans, dance like 

 glow-worms through the gloom. The sea-feather, which by day- 

 light is vermilion-colored, waves in a greenish, phosphorescent 

 light. Every corner of it is lustrous. Parts which by day were 

 perhaps dull and brown, and retreated from the sight amid the 

 universal brilliancy of color, are now radiant in the most wonder- 

 ful play of green, yellow, and red light ; and to complete the won- 

 ders of the enchanted night, the silver disk, six feet across, of the 

 moon-fish,* moves, slightly luminous, among the crowd of little 

 sparkling stars. 



675. " The most luxuriant vegetation of a tropical landscape 

 can not unfold as great wealth of form, while in the variety and 

 splendor of color it would stand far behind this garden landscape, 

 which is strangely composed exclusively of animals, and not of 

 plants ; for, characteristic as the luxuriant development of vegeta- 

 tion of the temperate zones is of the sea bottom, the fullness and 

 multiplicity of the marine Fauna is just. as prominent in the re- 



* Orthagoriscus mola. 



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