cvrrLE-Fisir. un 



of their darksome retreat; a body of some kind, 

 armed with a shaip beak, has chitohed hold of the 

 creature ; two enormous eyes light the march of a 

 more hideous monster than imagination ever de- 

 picted. But a gigantic form advances rapidly against 

 it. A terrible struggle seems imminent. No ! the 

 monster with the long arms vomits a black poison ; 

 the water to a great distance around it is filled with 

 a dense fog; the enemy retires, and the poulpe con- 

 tinues to hunt his prey in a domain which few ani- 

 mals dare approach. 



The ungainly bulk of the various kinds of whales ; 

 the elegant forms of the argonauta ; the crab in his 

 coat-of-mail ; the sea-urchin, which one would with 

 difficulty recognise for an animal if it were not for 

 the singular movement of his spines and his locomo- 

 tive suckers; the innumerable swarms of fish which 

 everywhere furrow the ocean, thicker tluin birds and 

 insects wing the air ; the immense shoals of medusae 

 transported by the marine currents like clouds of 

 locusts on the wings of the wind — all these hosts of 

 the sea, after all, occupy but a limited region in its 

 immense extent. 



As soon as we descend a little below the surface, 

 what interesting species and elegant forms conceal 

 themselves, so to speak, in organisms of the simplest 

 character, because adapted to the uniform existence 



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