BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



the water, and floated until I captured it. It 

 later repeated this in an aquarium, floating quietly 

 for an hour. The fully expanded fins apparently 

 made such intimate contact with the surface film 

 that, like a vacuum cup, it remained suspended. 



Equally unexpected visitors, which, like the 

 flounders, seem wholly adapted for bottom living, 

 were little sea -bats, Halieutichthys. They came 

 up from the black depths with turquoise blue fins 

 wide spread, and the only organ of propulsion the 

 tail. With the slightest lateral movement they 

 kept balanced in one spot or forged ahead, and 

 thus remained at the surface with the least possible 

 expenditure of energy. 



The lesser people of the night — the true plankton 

 — ^need a volume to themselves. Night after night 

 I watched the minute swimming hosts collect 

 about the light — month after month indeed, turn- 

 ing the water to a pale soup of vitality. I had 

 given little thought to their real mission in life. 

 As I have narrated, I had observed battle and 

 sudden death, feeding and being fed upon, court- 

 ship and mating. And then I would put out the 

 lights and lower the curtain upon human percep- 

 tion of all this maelstrom of activity. One day 

 I made a deep record dive from the gangway, full 

 ten fathoms down. It was an experience of 

 tremendous interest, but as usual, in many of my 

 efforts, one of the most startling things was as 

 unexpected as it was obvious, — the shaggy growths 

 upon the hull of the schooner. The Captain I 



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