kin.

The transparency of the beings in the _plancton_ recalled to Ferragut's
memory the marvelous colorings of the inhabitants of the sea, adjusted
exactly to their needs of preservation. The species that live on the
surface have, as a general rule, a blue back and silver belly. In this
way it is possible for them to escape the sight of their enemies; seen
from the shadows of the depths, they are confounded with the white and
luminous color of the surface. The sardines that swim in shoals are
able to pass unnoticed, thanks to their backs blue as the water, thus
escaping the fish and the birds which are hunting them.

Living in the abysses where the light never penetrates, the pelagic
animals are not obliged to be transparent or blue like the neritic
beings on the surface. Some are opaque and colorless, others, bronzed
and black; most of them are clad in somber hues, whose splendor is the
despair of the artist's brush, incapable of imitating them. A
magnificent red seems to be the base of this color scheme, fading
gradually to pale pink, violet, amber, even losing itself in the milky
iris of the pearls and in the opalescence of the mother-of-pearl of the
mollusks. The eyes of certain fish placed at the end of jaw bones
separated from the body, sparkle like diamonds in the ends of a double
pin. The protruding glands, the warts, the curving backs, take on the
colorings of jewelry.

But the precious stones of earth are dead minerals that need rays of
light in order to emit the slightest flash. The animated gems of the
ocean--fishes and corals--sparkle with their own colors that are a
reflex of their vitality. Their green, their rose color, their intense
yellow, their metallic iridescence, all their liquid tints are
eternally glazed by a moist varnish which cannot exist in the
atmospheric world.

Some of these beings are capable of a marvelous power of mimicry that
makes them identify themselves with inanimate objects, or in a few
moments run through every gamut of color. Some of great nervous
activity, make themselves absolutely immovable and contract, filling
themselves with wrinkles, taking on the dark tone of the rocks. Others
in moments of irritation or amorous fever, cover themselves with
streaks of light and tremulous spots, different colored clouds passing
over their epidermis with every thrill. The cuttlefish and ink fish,
upon perceiving that they are pursued, enwrap themselves in a cloud of
invisibility, jus