CORAL ISLANDS 309 



.iiid a host of volutes, harps, marginelles, cones, &c., of the most 

 . \(iuisite colouring, are all inhabitants of the warmer waters ; 

 ,111(1 the most costly gift of the sea, the oriental pearl, is the 

 produce of a mollusk which is found scattered over many parts 

 oi^ the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 

 I On descending still lower in the scale of marine life, we find 

 I the jelly-fish disporting in the tropical waves in hosts as brilliant 

 as the skies. Some are formed like a mushroom, others assume 

 the shape of a belt or girdle ; others are globular, while some 

 are circular, flat, or bell-shaped ; and others again resemble a 

 bunch of berries. In colour, perhaps the most delicate is the 

 lovely velella, with its pellucid crest, its green transparent body 

 and fringe of purple tentacles ; but it is surpassed in size and 

 gorgeousness by the physalia, or " Portuguese man of war," 

 whose large air-sack, with its splendid vertical comb, shines 

 in every shade of purple and azure. The greatest marvels of 

 the tropical ocean are, however, beyond comparison, the won- 

 drous buildings of the lithophytes, or stone polyps, the reefs and 

 coral islands. Here we see them forming vast barriers which 

 fringe the shores for hundreds and himdreds of miles ; there they 

 rise in circular atolls . over the blue waves, like bridal rings 

 dropped from the heavens upon the surface of the seas. All 

 is wonderful in these amazing constructions — their puny archi- 

 tects, the lagoons they encircle, the power with which they resist 

 the most furious breakers, the little world of plants drifted over 

 the waters, which ultimately covers them with a verdant crown, 

 and invites man to settle on these gardens of the ocean. There 

 the tall cocoa-palm rocks its feathered crest in the beeeze, 

 affording both shade and fruit to the islander, and there the 

 sea-bird finds a resting-place after its wide flight over the 

 deserts of the equatorial sea. 



