INTRODUCTION. XXV 



A description which reminds one forcibly of that 

 given by Milton in his account of the Creation, 

 where he says — 



" Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay, 

 With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 

 Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales 

 Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft 

 Bank the mid sea : part single, or with mate 

 Graze, the sea-weed their pasture, and through groves of 

 coral stray." 



The different naturalists who have accompanied 

 the various exploring- expeditions which of late 

 years have left our shores^ have furnished us with 

 many descriptions similar to Captain Grey's, all 

 tending" to show that wherever vegetation occurs in 

 the ocean there organic life abounds. Hosts of 

 small marine animals live among the Sargassum 

 found floating in the Southern branch of the Gulf 

 Stream ; the late George Gardner, in his ^^ Journal of 

 the Voyage Home from Brazil/' notices also the 

 variety of zoophytes, crabs, Ac, living amongst 

 this weed — thus in mid ocean do we find a wonder- 

 ful provision made for the sustenance of herbivorous 



b 



