CORAL JUNGLES OF SEA-COW REEF 



wine-colored worm wriggling on the hook. I held 

 it close for fear of the parti-colored wrasse which 

 swam about me and watched every movement. 

 When near the coral dome I floated out the thread 

 and let the worm descend slowly toward one of 

 the new fish. The fairy bass cocked up its eye, a 

 single fan of a fin drove it closer, then it deliberately 

 turned its back and nibbled at nothing — as far as I 

 could see — in the water. As I was watching the 

 basslet, a garnet wrasse rushed my hook and 

 swallowed it, and I had great trouble hauling in 

 and freeing it, — a fish which, in its turn, would 

 have thrilled most fishermen and all artists with 

 its unearthly beauty. I backed away and my 

 eye wandered for a moment to a clump of 

 beautiful worm flowers. At the same instant 

 one of my purple and gold fishlets rushed across 

 my field of vision, and like some horrid, ex- 

 aggerated shadow a small barracuda dashed 

 after. It cut the gold half clean off, then, with a 

 twist, seized the entire fish and vanished. Not ten 

 seconds later the same infant barracuda took a 

 small demoiselle near by. This settled any scruples 

 I might have had left. I went swiftly up my rope, 

 and soon an innocent looking white sausage of a 

 dynamite stick was lowered close to the great 

 cavern of millepores. We rowed off a short dis- 

 tance, then down went the plunger and the explo- 

 sion jarred the boat as if we had rammed a rock. 

 I descended at once and found an immense cone 

 of impenetrable cloud where the coral had been. 



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