142 REMINISCENCES OF 



we frequently witnessed it near the Cape of Good 

 Hope. 



The animals are occasionally found associated to- 

 gether in such countless myriads that the sea is literally 

 filled with them, sometimes over three or four square 

 miles of surface, and to the depth of several fathoms. 

 The yellow spots which have been described, being the 

 only coloured portions of their body, give to the whole 

 tract the appearance of a shoal or sand bank at some 

 distance below the surface. The deception is height- 

 ened by the greater smoothness of the water at these 

 places, particularly in calm weather, for so closely are 

 the animals crowded together, that the water is rendered 

 in a manner less fluid ; the smaller billows break around 

 the margin and are lost, while the heavy waves of the 

 southern ocean are somewhat opposed in their progress, 

 and take on in a slight degree the usual appearance of 

 the ground swell. There can be but little doubt that 

 many of the numerous shoals laid down in the charts 

 of this region, but which have never been seen by any 

 but the supposed discoverers, have been immense banks 

 of these gregarious molluscse. In sailing through a tract 

 of this description, in which the progress of the ship 

 was very sensibly retarded, I have dipt up with the 

 ship's bucket a greater bulk of the animals than of the 

 water in which they were suspended. How wonderful 

 are the effects produced by the minute links of creation ! 



C. 



