UNDEE THE "WATERS. 293 



or more modestly embellish the bottom, looking like beds 

 of variegated ranunculuses. Around the blossoms of the 

 coral shrubs play the humming-birds of the ocean, — little 

 fish sparkling with red or blue metallic glitter, or gleam- 

 ing in golden green, or in the brightest silvery lustre. 



" Softly, like spirits of the deep, the delicate milk-white 

 or bluish bells of the jelly-fishes float through this charmed 

 world. Here the gleaming violet and gold-green Isabelle, 

 and the flaming yellow, black, and vermilion-striped 

 Coquette, chase their prey; there the band-fish shoots, 

 snake-like, through the thicket, like a long silver ribbon, 

 glittering with rosy and azure hues. Then come the 

 fabulous cuttle-fish, decked in all colours of the rainbow, 

 but marked by no definite outline, appearing and dis- 

 appearing, intercrossing, joining company and parting 

 again, in most fantastic ways ; and all this in the most 

 rapid change, and amid the most wonderful play of light 

 and shade, altered by every breath of wind, and every 

 slight curling of the surface of the ocean. "When day 

 declines, and the shades of night lay hold upon the deep, 

 this fantastic garden is lighted up in new splendour. 

 Millions of glowing sparks, little microscopic Medusas and 

 Crustaceans, dance like glow-worms through the gloom. 

 The Sea-feather, which by daylight is vermilion-coloured, 

 waves in a greenish, phosphorescent light. Every comer 

 of it is lustrous. Parts which by day were dull and 

 brown, and retreated from the sight amid the universal 

 brilliancy of colour, are now radiant in the most wonder- 

 ful play of green, yellow, and red light ; and to complete 



