312 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



also belong to the tribe of Nomads, in the sense that 

 their home is where they are and where food 

 abounds. From my studies of the Grazers it seems 

 to me that they must sleep in some manner in- 

 explicable to us, coniining to some one part of the 

 brain the automatic, temporary regulation of eyes 

 and fins. In an aquarium I have never been able 

 to surprise one of the Grazers off guard. The one 

 exception xo all this is the triggerfish, and these 

 are chronic loungers and dozers. They lean over 

 anything handy or slant back against a corner at 

 night and are not easily disturbed, although the 

 lidless, staring eyes are never veiled. 



As with any community, the more I studied my 

 kingdom the more complex became the various 

 sects and guilds. I could keep on for many pages 

 without beginning to exhaust even my superficial 

 knowledge of the Grazers, for turning to the great 

 patches of sand without my mushroom city, I per- 

 ceived castes of sand Shovellers and Sifters, to say 

 nothing of sand Waiters who disguised their deadly 

 aggressiveness beneath a thin covering of this white 

 dust, — dust which I could never think of as wet, 

 because as usual there was nothing dry for com- 

 parison. To the more gentle sand folk belonged 

 the shovel-nosed rays, the mullets with their deli- 

 cate chin feelers like the tapping stick of a blind 

 man, and Polynemis of the long thread fingers, 

 forever stretching out for knowledge of suste- 

 nance. These too, were sand colored, but probably 

 rather as a protective cloak against the peering 

 eyes of enemy Nomads. 



