It becomes like a secret cave in the ocean, where the
processes of Nature go on in wonderful and silent progression, and the coy
sea displays its rarer beauties of life, of color, and of form before the
watching eyes. Look at it on some clear day, when the sun is bright, and
see the broad leaves of ulva, their vivid green sparkling with the
brilliant bubbles of oxygen which float up to the surface like the bubbles
of Champagne; see the glades of the pink coralline, or the purple Iceland-
moss covered with its plum-like down, in the midst of which the
transparent bodies of the shrimps or the yellow or banded shells of the
sea-snails are lying half hid. See on the brown rock, whose surface is
covered with the softest growth, the white anemone stretching its crown of
delicate tentacles to the light; or the long winding case of the serpula,
from the end of which appear the purple, brown, or yellow feathers that
decorate the head of its timid occupant. Or watch the scallop with his
turquoise eyes; or the comic crabs, or the minnows playing through the
water, in and out of the recesses of the rocks or the thickets of the
seaweed. There is no end of the pleasant sights. And day after day the
creatures will grow more tame, the serpula will not dart back into his
case when you approach, nor the pecten close his beautiful shell as your
shadow passes over it.
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