WHERE CURRENTS RIP 63 



made me so often use the expression, the spirit 

 of the flock or colony, herd or school. There would 

 sometimes be several hundred of these fish massed 

 under the keel of our little boat as we rowed about. 

 They refused all bait and it was with great diffi- 

 culty that we secured two or three specimens. 



We had been less than a week out from New 

 York when we discovered the value of the gang- 

 way as an adjunct to night fishing, and although 

 we had made use of this on all occasions, we had 

 no hint of its real possibilities until now. At 

 dusk, when the Arcturus was safe cradled between 

 the two pressing walls of water, I had two clusters 

 of electric lights lowered to the last steps of the 

 gangway and focussed down upon a twenty-foot 

 circle of water. To sit and watch the gradual 

 concentration of the ocean life attracted by the 

 light, was to have a very wonderful experience. 



The first arrivals were Halobates — the water- 

 striders of the sea. Two years before I had found 

 their newly hatched young in thousands close to 

 the shore of Indefatigable,^ and today I had veri- 

 fied the secret of their cradles. A hundred soon 

 gathered and covered the surface of the lighted 

 area with a maze of shooting lines. 



No amber- jack came, but Coryphcena was there 

 in numbers, and we caught thirty or forty, all less 

 than a foot in length, reflecting every imaginable 

 color. This marked the beginning of the inevitable 

 chain of reactions — first the small fry and then the 

 small fish; next the outposts of the mighty army 



* Galapagos: World's End, pp. 83-86. 



