"304 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



like trellis-work, of the Gorgonias. The clear ^^and of the bottom 

 is covered with the thousand strange forms and tints of the sea- 

 urchins and star- fishes. The leaf-like flustras and escharas 

 -adhere like mosses and lichens to the branches of the corals ; the 

 yellow, green, and jiurple-striped limpets cling like monstrous 

 cochineal insects upon their trunks. Like gigantic cactus- 

 blossoms, sparkling in the most ardent colours, the sea-anemones 

 expand their crowns of tentacles upon the broken rocks, or more 

 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. 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-fishes, decked in all 

 the colours 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 ^nd 

 shadcj 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 

 lip in new splendour. Millions of glowing sparks, little micro- 

 scopic medusas and crustaceans, dance like glow-worms through 

 the gloom. The sea-feather, which by daylight is vermilion- 

 coloured, 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 colour, are now radiant in the most wonderful play 

 of green, yellow, and red light; and, to comj)lete the wonders of 

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

 fish,* moves, slightly luminous, among the cloud of little spark- 

 ling stars. The most luxuriant vegetation of a tropical landscape 

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

 splendour of colour it would stand far behind this garden land- 

 scape, which is strangely composed exclusively of animals, and 

 * Orthairoriscus mola. 



