THE PHILOSOPHY OF XESURUS 283 



held. Twice a great hiero- sparrows hopped up and ate 



glyphic fish poked his head crumbs at my feet. A curi- 



out of his crevice and rolled ous old man opened a window 



his eyes up at me and then across the street and peered 



a golden grouper swam slowly down at me once or twice, 



by, like a wandering ray of Two lovely ladies passed but 



the sun. A fish new to me was did not look at me. One of 



a large wrasse, green in color, them had on a most wonderful 



with two longitudinal black sea-greendressshotwithglints 



lines, broken up into elong- of wine color, which came and 



ated dashes. A tiger shark went in the murky sunlight, 



watched me suspiciously, and A little distance away a po- 



came so near that I stood liceman watched me intently, 



up and took hold of the lad- and then came toward me with 



der, although I knew I had such evident suspicion, that I 



really nothing of which to be rose slowly, yawned, stretched, 



afraid. and walked slowly away. 



Observations such as these, while having an ac- 

 cumulative value when sufficiently numerous, give 

 little or no idea of a complete picture, or well- 

 rounded appreciation of any group or individual. 

 My Martian might better have concentrated on 

 some artisan or laborer, or any interesting person 

 whose dress and actions and general life revealed 

 some fundamental purpose, or method, or reason 

 of existence — of reasonable relationship to all the 

 host of objective phenomena which composed his 

 environment. 



I made up my mind that the next time I dived, 

 I would bring back the image of a personality, 

 the raison d'etre of some fish. That afternoon the 

 first fish which caught my eye when I reached the 

 bottom rung of the ladder was a yellow-tailed 

 surgeonfish, and I seized upon him to point my 

 moral and adorn my tale. It was a literal seizing, 

 for I harpooned him forthwith and carried him 



