210 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



very essence of their surroundings, — a vital factor 

 in helping to hide them from the eye of enemies 

 which looked down upon them from the air, or 

 upward from the depths. But at night a host of 

 small creatures found safety in being divested of 

 all pigment. In the course of evolution they had 

 scraped off all the mercury from the back of their 

 beings, becoming so transparent that the food 

 which they swallowed was the most conspicuous 

 and opaque part of their anatomy. 



I could never quite escape from a decided Alice 

 in Wonderland feeling when I looked into a dish 

 of night plankton scooped from the surface. By 

 keenest scrutiny I could perceive only the usual 

 hosts of small fry, when, reaching down and lift- 

 ing out what seemed only an area of clear water, 

 there would materialize before my eyes a Phyllo- 

 soma (Fig. 33). This was a creature who cast no 

 more shadow than the thinnest skim of clear ice. 

 Yet it was a living animal, more than three inches 

 long, with all the general organs which we our- 

 selves possess, — eyes, mouth, feet, stomach, nerves, 

 muscles and a strong will to live. Phyllosoma, or 

 leaf person, was the only name I could give them, 

 although glass crab would be more appropriate, 

 for they were the young of some lobster-like 

 crustacean and nothing is known of the inter- 

 mediate stages. 



On land the barriers which confront animals are 

 very apparent and tangible — mountains, deep 

 valleys, rivers, lakes, the presence or absence of 

 treeless plains, etc. At sea, living creatures are 



