§ 560. THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN. 305 



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, intercrossing, 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 fantastic 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 daylight is ver- 

 milion-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 bril- 

 liancy of color, are now radiant in the most wonderful play of 

 green, yellow, and red light ; and, to complete the wonders of the 

 enchanted night, the silver disk, six feet across, of the moon-fish,^ 

 moves, slightly luminous, among the cloud of little sparkling 

 stars. The most luxuriant vegetation of a tropical landscape can 

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

 dor 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 vegetation of 

 the temperate zones is of the sea bottom, the fullness and multi- 

 plicity of the marine Fauna is just as prominent in the regions of 

 the tropics. Whatever is beautiful^ wondrous, or uncommon in 

 the great classes offish and Echinoderms, jelly-fishes and Polypes, 

 and the Mbllusks of all kinds, is crowded into the warm and crys- 

 tal waters of the tropical ocean — rests in the white sands, clothes 

 the rough cliffs, clings, where the room is already occupied, like 

 a parasite, upon the first comers^ or swims through the shallows 

 and depths of the elements — while the mass of the vegetation is 

 of a far inferior magnitude. It is peculiar in relation to this that 

 the law valid on land, according to which the animal kingdom, 

 being better adapted to accommodate itself to outward circum- 

 stances, has a greater diffusion than the vegetable kingdom — for 

 the polar seas swarm with whales, seals,, sea-birds, fislies, and 



* Orrhngoriscus mola. 



