BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



They were only two inches in length. Although 

 resembling the demoiselles in general appearance, 

 we found later that they were actually diminutive 

 sea-basses belonging to the genus Gramma. The 

 anterior two-thirds of the body was rhodamine 

 purple, the head, jaws, scales and fins being equally 

 deep colored. Abruptly, the remaining third 

 changed to glowing cadmium yellow. But all this 

 detailed description is forgotten, when we see the 

 living fish, and we feel only an inarticulate appre- 

 ciation of the fairy-like beauty, as we watch the 

 school swimming in and out of their coral castle. 



By guiding signs on shore, a cocoanut palm just 

 below a notch in the second range of mountains, 

 and one native hut lined up with another, I was 

 able to return to this wonderful castle of coral and 

 to study it throughout many dives. Again I went 

 down and squatted and watched, and again I saw 

 the paradise fish — evanescent, long-finned, with 

 pigments so beautiful they will never desert the 

 memory. Six of them floated slowly back and 

 forth across the mouth of a great half-open cave 

 beneath the castle's crags. At my feet was a wire 

 trap baited with over-ripe bananas, soggy bread 

 and succulent sea-urchins. Around it swarmed — 

 on land we would say buzzed — a maze of wrasse, 

 exquisitely colored, gracefully formed, all excited 

 and pushing to get inside. But the fairy basses 

 were not to be lured by such sordid bait. 



In my palm I held a length of shoe thread, with 

 the tiniest hook in the world on the end, and a nice, 



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