BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



March. Birds were abundant, including a pair of 

 black-necked stilts which we shot for specimens, a 

 flock of greater yellowlegs, two great blues, four 

 Louisiana herons and a half dozen or more coots, 

 while a flock of eight blue-winged teal got up as 

 we approached. 



I found the lagoon dyke broken through, and the 

 tide pouring into a three-foot sluiceway. A 

 thorough seining of the first lagoon netted six 

 tarpon, measuring from four and a half to seven 

 inches, together with a two-inch snook. Ultimate 

 hauls failed to secure another fish of any kind. 

 A seine haul in the second lagoon yielded four 

 small mojarras, Eucinostomus calif orniensis, recent 

 emigrants from the open water outside. The 

 water-boatmen were as abundant, and the sulphur 

 smell quite as strong as ever, in spite of the in- 

 filtration of the water from the gulf. 



The most interesting development of this last 

 haul of young tarpon was that when we examined 

 five of the fish in aquariums on the schooner, we 

 found that there was something the matter with 

 their eyes — a grey, translucent film clouding the 

 tissue of the lens or the humor behind it, the aspect 

 being wholly unlike the appearance of the eyes 

 of the fish taken two months before. They seemed 

 to be quite blind. Whether this affliction was 

 connected with their remaining in the lagoon 

 after the hundreds or thousands of their fellows 

 had escaped to the open gulf can only be surmised. 

 It could hardly have interfered with their feeding, 



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