Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/198

184 swimming bladder is present, simple in structure, strong, and large.

About five hundred species are comprised in this Family, of which just one-fifth are European: the remainder are scattered over the shores of both hemispheres, most abundantly between the tropics. Around the spicy islands of the magnificent Oriental Archipelago, among the numberless kays and rocks of the Caribbean Sea, and especially in the clear and tranquil lagoons that abound in the coral-girt islets of the Pacific, the Wrasses, or Rock-fishes are exceedingly numerous, generally of small size, but of the most vivid colours. It is delightful to glide along in a boat over the surface of these calm waters, and peep down into the rocky chasms below, through an element scarcely less transparent than the air above; to see the corals and madrepores growing in a thousand fantastic forms, mimic shrubs of contorted slender branches, irregular wavy foliations, honey-combed masses of delicate laminæ, all of stone; great round brainstones with sinuous meandering furrows, all full of life; broad sea-fans of yellow and purple waving to and fro; sponges of curious shapes, and other forms of animal existence at its very lowest scale. Over these semi-animate masses other creatures are crawling; sea-urchins with long spines all quivering and vibrating with irregular and independent motion; star-fishes, with snake-like, slender tails; and beautiful shells half enveloped in the soft fleshy mantle that glows with rainbow tints, as each slowly creeps along. Twining about the tufts of living stone, now hiding in the cavernous recesses, now emerging, are seen multitudes of