180 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



lines, a great grey something out of focus. As 

 quickly, fear passed, and every fish again became 

 clearly etched in its place among its thousands of 

 fellows. Slowly all passed from view, a few 

 hundreds along the lower edge sifting through the 

 uppermost fringe of weeds. It occurred to me 

 then that their man-given name was a singularly 

 appropriate one — Xenocys, — strange! swift! It 

 should have been Xenocys ocenocys; they were too 

 delicate, too immaterial for any noun. 



My sea-lion retm-ned for a last look but slewed 

 off, and then a turtle, almost as long as myself, 

 swam into my ken. He was a much more satisfac- 

 tory constellation than any in the heavens, of most 

 of which I have never been able to make head or 

 tail. But he was a turtle at its best. Until one has 

 looked up and seen eight hundred pounds of sea 

 turtle floating lightly as a thistledown overhead, 

 balanced so exactly between bottom and surface 

 that the slightest half -inch ripple of flipper motion 

 was suflicient to turn the great mass partly over 

 and send it ahead a yard — until then one has never 

 really seen a turtle. Two years ago when I visited 

 these islands, I watched the little penguins wad- 

 dling about with their ever inimitable gait, I saw 

 the cormorants awkwardly climbing over land, 

 even hauling themselves along by means of crook- 

 ing their necks, the sea-lions unlovelily caterpillar- 

 ing along the ground, and gi'eat hulks of turtles 

 ploughing their way as much through as over the 

 sand of the beaches. It was now my privilege to 

 see these same creatures in their chosen element, 



