64 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



of the middle-sized — the mid-links, feeding upon 

 and fed on. After the Coryphcena and others of 

 their kind had played about for a while, faint, 

 ghostly shapes began to appear far, far down, 

 and soon a shark rose to the surface, and nosed 

 about to see what this new thing might have in store 

 in the way of crippled or dead. The most ex- 

 citing visitors — and they came in all sizes and 

 colors — were the squids. In and out weaved little 

 two-inch chaps, pursuing fish of equal size with 

 such speed and ferocity, that when one leaped, they 

 both leaped out of water. My net would slip under 

 a scarlet squid, and in the length of time it took 

 to lift it to my eyes, the net appeared empty, until 

 a slight sag in the mesh showed where there lay a 

 squid of pearly whiteness. 



A six-inch species placed in the big tank gave a 

 most marvellous exhibition. From side to side it 

 darted so swiftly that the eye could scarcely follow, 

 and at the end of each dart, as it brought up 

 against the glass side, it was a different squid — 

 first scarlet, then salmon, rose, scarlet again, pink 

 and the white of a moonstone. 



We had to have a clearing house, or rather a 

 clouding house aquarium for newly caught squid, 

 in which, as soon as deposited, they could empty 

 their sepia bags. A big squid three feet long which 

 we harpooned, ejected an enormous quantity, not 

 sepia, but opaque, bluish brown ink, that gave off 

 reddish bronze reflections like the skin of his body. 



If in the permanent aquarium with the larger 

 squid, there remained by chance a hapless fish, a mo- 



