86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



afforded by the butterfly fishes of the pools of the tropic coral reefs. 

 Eobin's egg blue and indigo, green and cadmium yellow, red, brown and 

 softest rose, scarlet, crimson, magenta, lavender and royal purple, pink, 

 salmon and tawny — all these colors laid on in dots and spots and 

 splashes, in lines and bars and polygons, and you have the paints and 

 the painting of the fish harlequins of the pools. Flashing back and 

 forth, lurking under projecting stones, rushing into dead coral heads 

 and coming reluctantly half paralyzed to the surface as we used the col- 

 lector's favorite methods, this display of fantastically colored fish life 

 was the most conspicuous feature of each day's seeing. 



Off the reef in the deeper water were larger fishes and many of them 

 too also extraordinarily colored and patterned. The parrot fishes with 

 their blue and green ground color and their livid pink and salmon and 

 rose markings were every-day prizes of our divers. The taking of the 

 off-shore fish (in water from two to six fathoms deep) had an element 

 of excitement in it. Small dynamite sticks were exploded in the water 

 to stun the fish and make them easily captured by the naked divers. In 

 one end of a small, wobbly canoe would stand a native with a dynamite 

 stick in one hand and a slow-burning piece of wood, or better, a lighted 

 cigar, in the other. Leaning down backward in the extreme other end 

 of the canoe would be the naturalist ! When we reached a good position 

 he would light the short fuse of the explosive and holding it almost to 

 the last moment before explosion (much as a boy holds on to his big 

 firecracker on Fourth of July mornings) he would hurl it overboard. 

 The explosion would take place a few feet under water, and on the 

 moment in would plunge the active divers from a second canoe. Alto- 

 gether, in our short two months collecting, we took more than five 

 hundred species of fishes from the reefs and shallow adjacent waters of 

 the two Samoan islands. Of these fully one hundred are species 

 hitherto unknown to naturalists. 



Of the long, glowing days under the ardent southern sun; of the 

 soft, odorous tropic nights ; of the f eastings and council meetings with 

 the friendly, hospitable natives ; of our glimpses between working hours 

 of the lotus-eating life that makes even the shortest stay in the tropics 

 a fascinating memory and that leaves an ever-persistent longing ; of all 

 this there is no space for even a word. We have only now to pack our 

 boxes and specimen cases, to send a stirring petition to the Comman- 

 dant at Pago-Pago to save us from another ocean trip in the Kawau by 

 sending the American gunboat for us, and to make final transshipment 

 to the great Sydney- San Francisco liner, to make an end of our sum- 

 mer's work and play. 



