218 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
penetrable mystery hides in the shadows where no sunlight enters, 
and, by a most striking contrast, helps to glorify and adorn the 
beautiful and unique forms that the light reveals. 
New and wonderful combinations of these (to us) strange forms 
of marine animal and vegetable life, when first observed and 
closely studied, is the occasion of new expressions of delight. * If 
sea-nymphs and ocean fairies exist anywhere in the world of 
waters, their chosen home should surely be in these coral bowers 
and grottoes; and if they are ever embodied, their outward adorn- 
ments cannot in color surpass that of the fish we saw sporting in 
the sunlight, and darting into the dark recesses of this beautiful 
submerged coral world. Exquisite in form, the perfection of 
gracefulness in motion, the peers of birds of gayest plumage in 
color, they seemed specially adapted to harmonize with, and grace 
and adorn this lovely spot. As with water, so ‘‘our friends at 
home think they know fish—but they don’t.” Some are brilliant 
yellow, others a rich scarlet, and others a glossy indigo blue. 
Here are seen fish in suits of emerald green, and others in clerical 
black. Costumes of satin and silver may also be observed. Be- 
sides all these there isin the piscatory dwellers among the corals” 
a most gorgeous color display, resulting from the ringing and 
striping and fringing and tipping and spotting of the fish. In- 
deed, it seems as if all the tints of the floral world and of the 
rainbow had been used in’ the most perfect and lavish manner 
to beautify and adorn these small specimens of the native dwellers 
of the ocean world. One of these, most gorgeously colored, was 
brought to us in a pail of sea water at our hotel, and we had an 
opportunity to more critically examine it. It was six inches long. 
Capt. Sampson called it the humming bird fish. We bottled it 
in alcohol, but its beautiful colors soon faded away. A descrip- 
tion of some of these remarkable fauna of the sea the reader will 
find in the next chapter of this book. The real in the coral 
bowers is more gorgeous than the ideal. 
