*

yellow, black, and vermilion-striped coquelle chase their prey; there the land-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 colors of the rainbow, but marked by no definite outline, appearing and disappearing, intercoursing, 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, millions of glowing sparks, little microscopic medusas and crustaceans, dance like glowworms through the gloom. The sea-feather, which by daylight is vermilion-colored, waves in a greenish phosphorescent light. Every corner of it is lustrous. Parts which by day were dull and brown, and retreated from the sight amid the universal brilliancy of color, are now radiant in the most wonderful play of green, yellow, and red light; and to complete the wonders of the enchanted night, the silver disk of the moon-fish moves, slightly luminous, among the crowd of little sparkling stars.

The most luxuriant vegetation of a tropical landscape cannot unfold as great wealth of form, while in the variety and splendor of color it would stand far behind this garden-landscape, which is strangely composed exclusively of animals, and not of plants; for, characteristic as the luxuriant development of vegetation of the temperate zone is of the sea-bottom, the fulness and multiplicity of the marine fauna is just as prominent in the regions of the tropics. Whatever is beautiful, wondrous, or uncommon in the great classes of fish and echinoderms, jelly-fishes and polypes, and the molluscs of all kinds, is crowded into the warm and crystal waters of the tropical ocean, rests in the white sands, clothes the rough cliffs, clings where the room is *Coquelle, or coquille, the cockle.

already occupied, like a parasite upon the first-comers, or swims through the shallows and depths of the element while the mass of the vegetation is of a far inferior magnitude. It is peculiar in relation to this that the law valid on land holds good with reference to the sea; for the polar seas swarm with whales, seals, sea-birds, fishes, and countless.numbers of the lower animals, even where every trace of vegetation has long vanished in the eternal frozen ice, and the cool sea fosters no seaweed: that this law, I say, holds good also for the sea, in the directions of its depths; for when we descend, vegetable life vanishes much sooner than the animals, even from the depths to which no ray of light is capable of penetrating, the sounding-lead brings up news at least of living infusoria. Schleiden.

SUBMARINE VIEWS.

"In

WHEN the sea is perfectly clear and transparent, it allows the eye to distinguish objects at a very great depth. Near Mindora, in the Indian Ocean, the spotted corals are plainly visible under twenty-five fathoms of water. The crystalline clearness of the Caribbean Sea excited the admiration of Columbus, who in the pursuit of his great discoveries ever retained an open eye for the beauties of nature. passing over these splendidly adorned grounds," says Schöpf, "where marine life shows itself in an endless variety of forms, the boat, suspended over the purest crystal, seems to float in the air, so that a person unaccustomed to the scene easily becomes giddy. On the clear sandy bottom appear thousands of sea-stars, sea-urchins, molluscs, and fishes of a brilliancy of color unknown in our temperate seas. Burning red, intense blue, lively green, and golden yellow perpetually vary; the spectator floats over groves of sea-plants, gorgonias, corals, alcyoniums, fla

bellums, and sponges, that afford no less delight to the eye, and are no less gently agitated by the heaving waters, than the most beautiful garden on earth when a gentle breeze passes through the waving boughs.”

With equal enthusiasm De Quatrefages expatiates on the beauties of the submarine landscapes on the coast of Sicily. "The surface of the waters, smooth and even like a mirror, enabled the eye to penetrate to an incredible depth, and to recognise the smallest objects. Deceived by this wonderful transparency, it often happened that I wished to seize some annelide or medusa, which seemed to swim but a few inches from the surface. Then the boatman smiled, took a net fastened to a long pole, and, to my great astonishment, plunged it deep into the water before it could attain the object which I had supposed to be within my reach. The admirable clearness of the waters produced another deception of a most agreeable kind. Leaning over the boat, we glided over plains, dales, and hillocks, which in some places naked and in others carpeted with green or with brownish shrubbery, reminded us of the prospects of the land. Our eye distinguished the smallest inequalities of the piled-up rocks, plunged more than a hundred feet deep into their cavernous hollows, and everywhere the undulations of the sand, the abrupt edges of the stone-blocks, and the tufts of algae were so sharply defined, that the wonderful illusion made us forget the reality of the scene. Between us and those lovely pictures we saw no more the intervening waters that enveloped them as in an atmosphere and carried our boat upon their bosom. It was as if we were hanging in a vacant space, or looking down like birds hovering in the air upon a charming prospect. Strangely formed animals peopled these submarine regions, and lent them a peculiar character. Fishes, sometimes isolated like the sparrows of our groves, or uniting in flocks like our pigeons or swallows, roamed among the crags, wandered through the thickets of the sea-plants, and shot away like arrows as

our boat passed over them. Caryophyllias, gorgonias, and a thousand other zoophytes unfolded their sensitive petals, and could hardly be distinguished from the real plants with whose fronds their branches intertwined. Enormous dark blue holothurias crept along upon the sandy bottom, or slowly climbed the rocks, on which crimson sea-stars spread out immoveably their long radiating arms. Molluscs dragged themselves lazily along, while crabs, resembling huge spiders, ran against them in their oblique and rapid progress, or attacked them with their formidable claws. Other crustaceans, analogous to our lobsters or shrimps, gambolled among the fuci, sought for a moment the surface waters to enjoy the light of heaven, and then by one mighty stroke of their muscular tail, instantly disappeared again in the obscure recesses of the deep. Among these animals, whose shapes reminded us of familiar forms, appeared other species, belonging to types unknown in our colder latitudes: Salpa, strange molluscs of glassy transparency, that, linked together, form swimming chains; great Beroës, similar to living enamel; Diphyæ, hardly to be distinguished from the pure element in which they move; and, finally, Stephanomia*, animated garlands woven of crystal and flowers, and which, still more delicate than the latter, disappear as they wither, and do not even leave a cloud behind them in the vase, which a few moments before their glassy bodies had nearly entirely filled. Schöpf and Quatrefages.

* See table, p. 463, for the classification of this and the above groups.

WONDERS OF THE SEA.

THE Oceanic world with its marine creation in no way resembles the world revealed to us in the interior of continents; nor can our streams, ponds, or rivers, however large, afford us any idea of it. Side by side with those colossal monsters which man learns to overcome within the dreary depths of ocean; side by side with innumerable productions that minister to our wants or our luxuries, and whose history is familiar to very children; side by side with these dwell widely differing and strangely organised races, whose very existence is known only to a few. To observe these creatures we need enter upon no perilous enterprise such as the capture of the whale demands; we require no immense nets such as are used in catching the tunny, herring, or mackerel; we need no heavy dredge to scrape the bottom of the sea and detach from its rocky sides the millions of oysters which daily load our tables; none of these are required; we need only walk along the shores from which the sea has just retreated. An indifferent or careless observer might, indeed, perceive nothing more than sand, mud, and stones. But pause

a moment, stoop, and look down at your feet, and everywhere you will see life teeming around you in the form of myriads of strangely shaped and marvellously organised beings. First there are bodies formed like stones, then there are stones which have been in turn transferred from the animal to the vegetable kingdom*; here we meet with plants so nearly allied to animals that they have long been classed amongst them†; next we encounter animals,

* The greater part of the Nullipores, which were at one time ranked amongst plants, and subsequently among the Polypes, by the side of the Millepores, have been found to be mere stony concretions.

+ The Corallina, which has successively been placed in the three kingdoms of nature, is decidedly an alga, and consequently a plant.