272 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



As the colibris dart from flower to flower in the Brazilian 

 woods, thus the gorgeous balistinae and glyphodons sport 

 about the submerged coral-gardens, and enhance the brilliancy 

 of their fairy bowers. 



While these lustrous fishes belted with azure, red, and gold, 

 defy the imagination of the poet to describe their beauty, 

 others remind one by their deformity of the chimeras engen- 

 dered by the diseased brain of a delirious patient. Here we 

 see the hideous frog-fish creeping along like a toad upon his 

 hand-like fin, there the sun-fish swimming about like a vast 

 head severed from its trunk. Cased like the armadillo in an 

 inflexible coat of mail, into which every movable part can be 

 withdrawn, the trunk-fish derides the attack of many an enemy ; 

 and inflating its spiny body, the diodon, like the hedgehog of 

 the land, bids defiance to his foes. 



On examining the crustacean world, we find that it has 

 established its head-quarters in the tropical zone. There a 

 multitude of wondrous types unknown to the colder regions of 

 the globe attract the attention of the naturalist : the trans- 

 parent phyllosomas, not thicker than the thinnest wafer, and 

 the strange sword-tails, whose body is covered by a double 

 shield, and terminates in a long horny process, used by the 

 Malays to point their arrows. ' The crabs and lobsters of the 

 tropical waters are not only more numerous than in our colder 

 seas, but they attain a far greater size than those of the tempe- 

 rate regions of the globe. 



The decapod crustaceans (cray-fish) which inhabit our rivers 

 and brooks, are long-tailed like the lobster, but in the torrid 

 zone the river species all belong to the order of the short- 

 tailed crabs, the most perfect and highly developed of the 

 class. Some species even entirely forsake the water and 

 spend their days on shore, not only on the beach, but far 

 inland on the hills. When the season for spawning arrives, 

 large numbers of these land-crabs set out from their moun- 

 tainous abodes, marching in a direct line to the sea-shore, 

 for the purpose of depositing their eggs, which are attached to 

 the lower surface of the abdomen and are washed off by the 

 surf. This done, they recommence their toilsome march 

 towards their upland retreats, setting out after nightfall and 

 steadily advancing until the dawn warns them to seek con- 



