84 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



me, from crevices upon which I was seated, seem- 

 ingly materiahzing from the clear water, came fish 

 and fish and fish. It is far from my intention to 

 give a detailed list of all of these. The effect upon 

 the reader in this connection, would be much the 

 same as my own sensations at this time, if, by 

 chance, my friend working the pump in the boat 

 above had suddenly dropped off to sleep. Their 

 names, numbers, colors and habits are all set down 

 elsewhere in a more suitable place — Zoologica. 



Even if I wished to speak of them in a homely 

 way I could not, for most of them have had visited 

 upon them the names only of the official, scientific 

 census-taker, while the rest have no names at all. 

 So Adam-like, I had to give them all tempor- 

 ary names, until I could identify them, or christen 

 them with my own binomial terms. It was long 

 before I could disentangle individual characteris- 

 tics from the whirling mass (Fig. 18). The first 

 four fishes rushed for the bait — 



"And yet another four ; 



And thick and fast they came at last, 

 And more, and more, and more — " 



SO that until I could shut my mind to the abstract 

 marvel of it and my eyes to the kaleidoscopic, 

 hypnotic effect, ichthyology gained little of specific 

 factual contribution. I waved my magic crab, I 

 may have murmured Plop ! Glub ! and Bloob ! which 

 is what the bubbles say when I first immerse — and 

 the hosts came. Within three minutes from the 

 time when the crab first fell into my hand, I had 



