68 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



miss some of the absorbing tableaus and exciting 

 events which were constantly passing on every side. 

 Always the key to the meaning of the actions and 

 reactions lay in the complex inter-relationships of 

 all these myriads of living beings. We were trawl- 

 ing slowly ahead, and bore down on a small log on 

 which was perched a booby, a big fellow in brown, 

 with pink bill and greenish feet and legs. Just 

 before our bow upset his raft, he ejected three fish, 

 each at least eight inches long, and so recently 

 swallowed that they seemed still living. Immedi- 

 ately every fish under the log dashed at this sudden 

 appearance of food, and for yards around the ex- 

 citement spread and spread. Meanwhile the 

 booby, lightened by the discarded ballast, flew off, 

 spattering the water with his great webs for a few 

 yards, and followed eagerly a little way by the 

 hammerhead and several dolphin-fish. 



Just after this we caught a Coryphcena from the 

 boom-walk which weighed thirty-two pounds and 

 as completely disintegrated the white sunlight to 

 our eyes as any prism which ever reflected a spec- 

 trum. From its gills I took twenty-five parasitic 

 crustaceans, of which half were in turn parasitized 

 by pinkish goose barnacles. And this great fish 

 had been feeding on the most beautiful sea-shell 

 in the world — a dozen paper nautilus, all uncrushed 

 and unharmed, with their little argonaut owners. 



Three times on this last day great areas of the 

 water were colored a deep purple by incredible 

 numbers of delicate jellyfish, and again a yellow 

 stain was spread over a hundred yards of surface, 



