WHEN NIGHT COMES TO WATER 



night; the moment they appeared I hooked one, 

 and let him dash about madly, lifting him and 

 dropping him back, until the fright was thoroughly 

 imparted to the school, when all its fellows prompt- 

 ly disappeared. When the original eleven had 

 dwindled, night by night, to six, I examined the 

 food of one I caught and found thirty-three fish, — 

 fourteen anchovies, six lizardfish, six triggers, two 

 puffers, five bumpers and one Bregmaceros. It 

 was curious to observe that none of the predatory 

 fish ever touched a worm or a true leptocephaliis 

 larva; these had only the tentacles of the jellyfish 

 to fear. 



The Bregmaceros was one of the rare visitors 

 from the open or the deep sea, whose presence was 

 wholly unexpected. I had taken it on the Arcturus 

 at a depth of three-quarters of a mile, and yet 

 here came a half dozen to the surface and scarcely 

 a hundred yards from shore. 



We have only begun to learn something of this 

 strange world and can never foretell what the next 

 moment will reveal . Three times I saw very small 

 flounders come to the light, all of which I caught. 

 The first was a young turbot, Syacium micrurum, 

 absolutely transparent except for the tin-foil back- 

 ing of the eyes and a few red-blood pigment cells 

 in the gills. The others were fully pigmented 

 when they first appeared. In the light one of 

 them lost all color except for a greenish border. 

 It undulated to the surface, curved down into a 

 saucer or cup-shape with the circular fin rays above 



93 



