THE BOOK ABOUT THE SEA GARDENS 



patches that the visitor Will find most enter- 

 tainment. 



Most people know that coral is made by a tiny 

 polyp, a microscopic flowerlike creature whose 

 labors create islands and walls of hard lime upon 

 which great ships may shatter themselves in a 

 few minutes. Each tiny individual lives its little 

 life and dies bequeathing its mite to the vast edifice 

 of its family. Not everyone realises that there are 

 hundreds of kinds of coral, and the details of their 

 various habits do not interest the average tourist 

 in search of diversion ; the language in which the 

 little known about them is written is such that 

 only a few may read, but every lover of beauty 

 can enjoy their forms and colours, while with the 

 slenderest finger-post of knowledge concerning 

 fish, fan and feather the gardens become a won- 

 derland for the meanest imagination. 



The amazing waste and wealth of nature should 

 impress a man who is accustomed to value objects 

 by their size or cost. A handful of chalk contains 

 a myriad of homes of small shellfish ; the sand of 

 the sea is different in every part of the globe, but 

 here of course it is largely composed of the pul- 

 verised remains of polyp dwellings. 



Out of a million fish-children, the sons of one 

 mother, how many arrive at maturity, and what 

 dangers await the tiny miracle from the moment 

 the ovum is fertilized until we catch a full-grown 



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