ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA. 147 



feeding as they go : these, mingled with the varied 

 contour and colour of delicate sea-plants, form a pic- 

 ture which has its prototype nowhere but in fairy- 

 land. 



" The sounds and seas, each creek and bay, 

 With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 

 Of fish that with their fins, and shining scales, 

 Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft 

 Bank the mid sea : part single, or with mate, 

 Graze the sea-weed their pasture, and through groves 

 Of coral stray ; or sporting with quick glance, 

 Show to the sun their waved coats dropped with gold; 

 Or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend 

 Moist nutriment ; or under rocks their food 

 In jointed armour watch : on smooth the seal 

 And bended dolphins play : part huge of bulk, 

 Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, 

 Tempest the ocean : there leviathan, 

 Hugest of living creatures, on the deep, 

 Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims, 

 And seems a moving land ; and at his gills 

 Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea." 



MILTON. 



