COLOUR OF MARINE VEGETATION. 163 



browns and yellows, rich purple tints passing from 

 the most vivid red to the deepest blue; nuUipores, 

 yellow or pink, delicately touclied as the peach, 

 covering decaying plants with a fresh development 

 of life, and themselves enveloped with a black tissue 

 of retipores resembling the most delicate carvings 

 in ivory. Near by wave the yellow and lila(; fans of 

 the gorgona, worked liked jewelry in filigree. 

 Strewn over the sandy bottom are thousands of 

 sea-stars and sea-urchins of the most curious forms and 

 varied colours. The flustra, the eschara attached 

 to bran(!hes of coral-like mosses and lichens, and 

 the patellidae striped with yellow and purple, look 

 like great cochineal insects on the ground. Then 

 the sea-anemones, looking like immense cactus-flowers, 

 brilliant with the most glaring colours, adorn the 

 clefts of the rocks with their waving crowns, or 

 spread out their blooms, till the sea-bottom resemble*? 

 a border of many-coloured ranunculuses. Around 

 the coral-bushes play the hummingbirds of the ocean 

 — brilliant little fishes, now sparkling with metallic 

 red or blue, now with a golden green, or with the soft 

 hue of silver. All this marvellous manifestation of 

 life is displayed in the midst of the most rapid alter- 

 nations of light and shade, changing with every 

 breath, with every undulation that ripples the sur- 

 face of the sea. When daylight declines, the shadows 



