THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



and tints of the sea-urchins, and star-fishes. The 

 leaf-like Flustras and Escharas adhere like mosses 

 and lichens to the branches of the corals ; the yel- 

 low, green, and purple-striped Limpets cling like 

 monstrous cochineal insects upon their trunks. 

 Like gigantic cactus-blossoms, sparkling in the 

 most ardent colours, the Sea-anemones expand 

 their crowns of tentacles upon the broken rocks, 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 gleaming 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, ap- 

 pearing and disappearing, 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 corner of 

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