198 



THE OPAL SEA 



In the 



Mexican 

 gulf. 



Seen 



thTOugh a 

 water glass. 



Tropical 

 fishes. 



lighted by the broken sunbeam that falls not 

 straight but in a curved line like a spent rifle 

 ball, the view becomes abnormal, astonishing, 

 bewildering. For there one sees great tangles 

 of olive-purple fucus and laminaria, lilac thick- 

 ets of branching madrepore, patches of " blood- 

 flower" coral, beds of golden sponges, hillsides 

 of crimson-tentacled anemones, valleys fllled 

 with swaying sea-feathers, all sown broadcast, 

 scattered at haphazard in the bottom of the 

 sea. There in every grotto and under every 

 rock are scurrying squids and shrimps and scar- 

 let crabs with pearl oysters and " chambered " 

 nautiluses, star fish, sea lilies, sea urchins, bar- 

 nacles, acorn shells, boring annelids, and wind- 

 ing sea worms. And there, also, with jelly flsh 

 gleaming in transparent opal, and chains of 

 salpcB pearly with phosphorescence, slowly move 

 across the meadows and around the sea cliffs, 

 myriads of shore flshes modeled in a thousand 

 curious forms and decorated with gold, silver, 

 and moss-agate colorings. Schools of black- 

 barred coral fishes (sometimes called " angel 

 fishes ") wind through the clumps of madre- 

 pore; trigger fishes (Ballstes Carolinensis), 

 with back fins that lock at the will of the pos- 

 sessors, wander aimlessly over the algce; parrot 

 fishes with brilliant glancing colors browse 



