These ideas, as I have stated, are no longer tenable, and the real origin of the phenomenon is better understood. But even now, the few who have witnessed it in full extent, variety, and grandeur—a privilege rarely enjoyed, except by those who have made long voyages, and have become familiar with many seas—are lost in wonder; and, unless professionally devoted to the study of natural history, they find it difficult to credit the assertion, that all these vast displays are mere results of living action. It may prove interesting, then, to those who are fond of such investigations, to offer some remarks on the multitudinous character of those tribes of simple and transparent beings, which swarm about the surface of the ocean, and may be found continually changing in race and habits, with almost every degree of latitude we traverse. If you will take the trouble, on some suitable occasion during the month of November or December, to descend into a _fashionable oyster cellar_, and ask admission to the pile of freshly opened shells stowed in the usual receptacle, which is in some dark vault or closet about the premises, you may chance to witness, on a diminutive scale, the far-famed phosphorescence of the sea, without enduring the heavy _immigration tax_ levied, with unrelenting severity, by the old trident-bearer upon all novices, except, perhaps, a few fortunate favorites. Take up the shovel that leans against the wall, order the light removed and the door closed, and then proceed to disturb the shells. If they have been taken from the water, where it is purely salt,—and still more certainly if gathered from the beds of blue marine mud that are the favorite resort of the finest oysters—the moment you throw a shovelful upon the top of the pile, the whole mass, jarred by the blow, will become spangled with hundreds of brilliant stars—not in this case pale and silvery, but of the richest golden-green or blue. None of these stars may equal in size the head of the finest pin; but so intense is the light emitted by them, that a single, and scarcely visible point will sometimes illuminate an inch of the surrounding surface, even casting shadows from the little spears of sea-grass growing in its neighborhood.