perhaps you did not know that the fishes in the sea, both large and small, were playful creatures. well, they are. they can frisk, frolic, play "hide-and-seek", "catch", and race and romp at a great rate.

now i want to tell something of our playground, and if you are surprised at the beauty with which we are surrounded, why should you be? there surely are lovely things on the earth for all kinds of upper-air creatures, such as folks, animals, birds, and insects, to enjoy.

listen, then, while i tell about the "caverns of ocean". a cavern, you know, is a hollow or den, and old ocean holds many a cavern or den full of interest and beauty. but i will take you first to a kind of grove.

my home, where i spend most of my time, is in deep water. but not in the deepest, oh, no! that is said to be two thousand fathoms down. think of it! more than two miles below the surface. there probably is but very little life at that depth. but when i visit some groves, or the region of a reef, i must first sail and sail until i reach water that is not deep at all.

do you think you have ever seen coral, real coral? yes, doubtless you have, and you may have seen it in various forms. but i feel sure you have never seen coral to know very much about it, as you have never been to the bottom of the sea.

ah, here are all kinds of graceful shapes shooting up from the depths, so singular and varied in form, that one would wonder what they are meant to stand for. look at these trees, perfect little trees in coral, eight or ten feet high, with branches spreading out from the trunk. on the branches are delicate sprays of fairylike net or lace-work, all in white, but of various patterns. should you get near enough, you would see that these branches, some of which seem to bear flowers in shapes like pinks or lilies, are dented or pitted as if tiny teeth had eaten into them. this may be partly the work of worms.

now, this is simply a large piece of white coral, but all around and about are fanciful shapes, nearly as large as the one described. here, too, are what might be taken for thick bushes or shrubs, branching out with sprays of fretwork, white and spotless. then there are smaller growths like low plants, and curiously colored, some pink, some red, others a yellowish white. these, too, appear to bear flowers, asters, carnations, or roses.

and for miles at a time we can rove and sport in a beautiful coral grove.

think of a little house, if you can, made entirely of ivory, with here and there bright tints mingling with the white. for coral looks like ivory when its natural roughness is smoothed and polished. think of swimming through little rooms, under arches, over lovely walks, through make-believe doors, slipping past upright altars of red and white coral, resting on spreading seats, or under outreaching canopies, or stopping to look at another outreaching shape like the arms of candelabra or candlestick holders. sliding over footstools, and under culverts, all soft and gleaming in color. then again there are curves and passages in which we can hide and stay hidden as long as we please. is it not beautiful? and all so clean and clear!

yet there is need to take heed and be careful. these stretching shapes and branches, these candle-holders and bushy twigs have sharp, hard points, and bouncing against them too suddenly might severely wound a fish, or it might slip into a crevice where it would be pricking work to get out.

now, what is coral. is it alive? does it live and breathe? it is one of the curious, mysterious things of the ocean about which folks have written and studied, and the wise ones say that coral is neither insect nor fish, but a kind of sea-animal, that lives in both deep and shallow waters. in the beginning it appears to be a tiny sea-creature, like a small, fleshy bag, with a mouth at one end, while with the other it clings to some object, almost always a rock.

these little creatures are said to have the power to sting if they are provoked. from these tiny frames there comes a hard, stony substance that spreads and spreads as we have seen, while the part that was alive becomes a mere dead shell.

this is the best explanation i can give about coral and the tiny creatures from which it takes its start, and that seem so exceedingly small to me to be called "sea-animals." but think of the wonderful formations that grow from the bodies of these mites of creatures! why, there are whole reefs or chains of rocky borders along some coasts made entirely of coral. some of them are known as barrier reefs.

bless you! it may be hard to believe, but a barrier reef twelve hundred miles long runs along the coast of australia between the pacific and indian oceans! then there are coral islands in the pacific ocean, whole platforms of solid coral which shut in portions of quiet water in some places.

the little corals themselves do not work in deep water, nor above the surface of the sea. but the bony substance spreads and spreads, up, down, and across the sea. and as many shell-fish eat into coral, great quantities of fine coral-sand sink to the bottom, making a nice white carpet for the fishes to glide over. folks do not take coral from the sea at any time but during the months you call april, may, and june.

now remember these things when you go into houses and see fine large pieces of coral on the mantel, or it may be standing against the wall.

perhaps you have a coral necklace of little, uneven, red, stick-like beads. the jeweller-man can tell you how very hard it is to drill the holes in these beads; it is like drilling through hard rock. but if you happen to have a necklace, brooch, or bracelet of pink coral, my! you had better take good care of it, for it must have cost a little bag of gold. pink coral is rare, beautiful, and very expensive. the genuine pink-tinted is said to have sold for so great a price as five hundred dollars for a single ounce.

heigho! i want neither necklace, brooch, nor bracelet. for where, pray, would lord dolphin wear a breastpin, or how would he look with a string of coral beads about his neck, or a bracelet pinched about his tail?

you needn't laugh so hard. i have seen folks who hung too much jewelry about themselves and seemed to think it becoming. a few pieces of nice jewelry may be tasteful and ornamental, but when too much is worn, i have a fancy that it might make a coral mite or an oyster want to laugh.

pretty soon i must explain why an oyster might have a right to be amused at seeing too many gems crowded on at once. but first you must hear something funny about coral, something so silly, too, that even a fish is almost ashamed to tell of it; but this was true long in the past, folks are much wiser now.

long years ago there were folks who believed that wearing a "charm," which often was a little piece of coral, perhaps made into an ornament, would charm away harm or danger, and keep them safe from "the evil eye."

"dear sakes!" you cry, "what was 'the evil eye'?"

well, it is almost sad to think that any one could be so foolish, yet when folks know but little, they will catch up strange notions and listen to silly signs without an atom of truth or common sense in them. so some ignorant folks once believed that a witch, or some witchy folk with an evil eye, might look upon them and cause them harm, or make them meet some danger.

and they pretended that hanging a bit of coral somewhere about them would keep off a look from "the evil eye," and that making children wear a piece of it would charm away sickness and act as a medicine. now did you ever!

chinese folks and hindoos have made most exquisite and wonderful carvings of the coral of the mediterranean, and there is such a thing as black coral, also known as brain coral, but it is too brittle to be worked upon.

ah, who would not be a dolphin, merry and free, whisking through deep, still water, coasting over coral sands, and diving and sporting through coral groves!

nor is this the only rare and curious place through which i rove, chasing my comrades, wandering about in search of caverns below, and sweet music above, while forever making war on my enemy, the flying-fish.

you see, these fish can cut through the water, reach the surface, then really fly with finny wings across short spaces right in the air. they think themselves smart, and are great braggarts.

one morning a flying-fish was bent on worrying me, swishing its flapping fins directly before my face, then darting upward, sending the spray cross-wise into my eyes. i made a snap or two at the vexing creature, but as i missed him he became bolder, and stopped a race i was having with one of my mates.

suddenly i made a great leap after the flier, but up he went, up, up, and i after him, sharp! further up he went, and i pursued. he laughed, fish-fashion, his big mouth sprawling way across his face as he sped above the surface.

i poked my nose into upper air and saw which way he was going, and to my joy he made a dip just as up went my beak again, and i had him, squeezed securely between my jaws.

of all the wriggling and squirming, the begging and the pleading that ever you saw or heard! but i did not want to eat him, nor did i mean to kill him, either. but i did mean to teach old mister flier a lesson, showing it was neither wise nor in good taste to torment a fish-fellow that was ever so much larger and stronger than himself.

so down, down i went, until i reached a cell in a coral grove, and in i popped his majesty, and sat down and grinned at him. my turn to show a wide mouth now.

did you know a fish could tremble? that fellow trembled and shook as if he had a fishy fit when he found himself in that den, with a great dolphin's eye on him. perhaps it was indeed "an evil eye" to him. he could have slipped out and away would i only move and give him room. oh, no, not just yet! i lashed the water with my strong tail, and "made up eyes" at him, i am afraid, in a truly evil way.

then i began to feel that it was neither kind nor noble to carry my punishment too far, so off i slowly sailed, and out from his tight corner slid my slippery prisoner. and he tormented me no more. i did not mean to harm him, and do not think i did, but he slipped sideways through the water ever after that.

it must be that he jammed a fin in his haste to escape from his cubby, but i see him often, and always with that sideways gait. i hope he is cured forever of making of himself a pester and a plague.

i was glad to see that he still could fly, and that swift as an arrow he could dart over and under, through and across, the thousand winding ways of our coral groves.