184 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



ciates remained in one spot, doing nothing else for 

 a half hour but scrape the alg^e from the rocks. 

 Once too, I saw one of these white-spotted chaps 

 pursue a small fish, and though he did not capture 

 it, yet I could not mistake his intent, — there was 

 nothing of play nor yet of sudden anger in the 

 attempt, but a very evident desire for food. They 

 were much more timorous than the yellow-tailed 

 surgeon fish and at any hint of danger would dart 

 into the thick of the school. All this makes me 

 think that they are very likely examples of real 

 mimicry, gaining a good percentage of immunity 

 by the resemblance to and close association with 

 fish, which by their great numbers and poisonous 

 spines are well able to fight off ordinary dangers. 

 When I rolled over and looked about, there came 

 to me a vision of the abundance of life in the sea. 

 The cloud of little fishes had gone, even the ubiqui- 

 tous yellow-tailed surgeons were out of sight for 

 once, and yet from where I sat I could see not fewer 

 than seven or eight hundred fish, not counting the 

 wrasse and gobies which played around my fingers 

 as thickly as grasshoppers in a hay-field. Out of 

 the blue-green distance or up from frond-draped 

 depths good-sized grey sharks appeared now and 

 then. Two came slowly toward me, closer with the 

 in-surge and then floating farther off with the out- 

 swing. They turned first one, then the other, 

 yellow, cat-like eye toward me, and after a good 

 look veered off. Near to them were playing round- 

 headed pigfish, a few Xesurus swam still nearer, 

 and even small scarlet snappers, the prey of al- 



