128 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



ever was given to man to admire. Every 

 point of the chief branches and twigs of the 

 coral Isis threw out brilliant jets of fire, now 

 paling, now reviving again, to pass from 

 violet to purple, from red to orange, from 

 bluish to different tones of green, and some- 

 times to the white of over-heated iron. The 

 pervading colour, however, was greenish ; the 

 others appeared only in transient flashes, and 

 melted into the green again. Minute by 

 minute the glory lessened, as the animals died, 

 and at the end of a quarter of an hour they 

 were all like dead and withered branches." 

 But while they were at their best "one could 

 read by their light the finest print in a news- 

 paper at a distance of 6 yards." 



In the case just described, the light was 

 apparently given off from the whole of the 

 living matter covering the limy skeleton, but 

 very often it comes from particular spots or 

 "light organs." One cuttlefish has about 

 twenty of these luminous spots, " like gleam- 

 ing jewels, ultra-marine, ruby-red, sky-blue, 

 and silvery," and another has minute light- 

 giving points dotted all over its body. 



Fishes often have these light-giving spots, 

 and we are told of one fish which has two 



