Oh. X.] THE COEAL EEEF. 147 



brought us upon a two-fathom patch, over which I allowed 

 the boat to drift slowly ; and leaning over the side and look- 

 ing down into the mirror-like sea I could admire at leisure 

 the wonderful sight, undistorted as it was by the slightest 

 ripple. Glorious masses of living coral strewed the bot- 

 tom : immense globular madrepores — vast overhanging mush- 

 room-shaped expansions, complicated ramifications of inter- 

 weaving branches, mingled with smaller and more dehcate 

 species — round, finger-shaped, horn-like and umbrella-form — 

 lay in wondrous confusion ; and these painted with every 

 shade of delicate and brilliant colouring — grass-green, deep 

 blue, bright yellow, pure white, rich buff, and more sober 

 brown — altogether forming a kaleidoscopic effect of form and 

 colour unequalled by anything I had ever beheld. Here and 

 there was a large clam shell (Chama) wedged in between 

 masses of coral, the gaping, zigzag mouth covered with the 

 projecting mantle of the deepest prussian blue ; beds of 

 dark purple, long-spined Echini, and the thick black bodies 

 of sea-cucumbers (Holothuriae) varied the aspect of the sea 

 bottom. In and out of these coral groves, like gorgeous 

 birds in a forest of trees,, swarm the most beautifully-coloured 

 and grotesque fishes, some of an intense blue, others bright 

 red, others yellow, black, salmon-coloured, and every colour 

 of the rainbow, ciu'iously barred and banded and bearded, 

 swarming everywhere in Httle shoals which usually included 

 the same species, though every moment new species, more 

 striking than the last, came into view.* Some, like the 



* A very distinguislied zoological writer, when speaking of a somewhat 

 similar scene, remarks, "It is excusable to grow enthusiastic over the infinite 

 numbers of organic beings with which the sea of the tropics, so prodigal of 

 life, teems : yet I must confess I think those naturalists who have described, 

 in well-known words, the submarine grottoes decked with a thousand beauties, 

 have indulged in rather exuberant language. " With these lines before me, I 



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