48 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



board and then went over himself to salvage what 

 he could. Meanwhile we had roped and wired the 

 great mass, and by hanging by our knees and 

 heaving willingly but all at different times, we got 

 it up at last, dripping water, fish and crabs, and 

 with a final shove heaved it over the rail to the 

 deck. 



I was afraid that all of the small people in the 

 wooden sanctuary must have fallen out from the 

 shaking and the banging to which the log had been 

 subjected, but little did I know the clinging powers 

 of these small beings. In the case of this particu- 

 lar log they might all have come of the race of 

 Jumblies, for boring worms had been at work on 

 it, perhaps when it was a pile of some far distant 

 wharf, and by their activities had made half of it a 

 veritable sieve. The long list of passengers would 

 be out of place here; suffice it to say that we got 

 fifty-four species from this single log. No sooner 

 had we dumped it on the deck, than those of its 

 inhabitants who objected most to fresh air began 

 dropping off, first a five-inch trigger fish, followed 

 by some younger brothers, and later a swarm of 

 little blennies to whom the log must have meant 

 much. For these fish are on their way to become 

 quadrupeds of sorts, and are ordinarily never 

 found far from solid shore. These belonged on the 

 coast of Mexico, ranging as far south as Panama, 

 which gave us at once a clue as to the origin of the 

 current flotsam. They skipped alertly about on 

 the deck, going where they wished, not, as with 

 most fish out of water, where their flops took them. 



