GLOBE-FISH
A Curious Inhabitant of Coral-Land
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PORCUPINE-FISH
Another Curious Inhabitant of Coral-Land
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Far down below myriads of gorgeous shells lay scattered about on the white sand like gay figures in a carpet, every color showing plainly through the wonderfully transparent water. Here a tree of coral rose up from the depths, its branches covered with lovely star-shaped flowers; farther below a bed of shrubbery sprang from hidden rocks, and close at hand a colony of beautiful Sea-Anemones lifted their proud heads, and swayed gracefully in the water. Some of these flowers were shaped like chrysanthemums with rows of fringed petals, some were shorter and stouter, like dahlias, and all formed a mass of brilliant color, pink, purple, orange, blood-red, and sea-blue, striped with pink.

Never had Sammy seen such a sight as this bed of Anemones, and, struck with admiration, he stopped to examine them more closely. But the experienced Pilot warned him to be careful.

“They look very fine,” said he, “but they are not to be trusted.” You know, of course, that the Sea-Anemones, like almost all flowers and plants which grow in the ocean, are living animals, polyps, we call them. The Anemones are polyps, and the coral big and little, living and dead is being made, or has been made by polyps.

“You see that bed of pink flowers over there, and those green rushes, and those fern-like plants? Well, they are all living polyps, or colonies of polyps, some kinds of which leave coral when they die, like the coral polyps proper.