316 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



one, and yet, although our body is two-thirds of 

 another, perish miserably when immersed in it. 



I have given above a few stray notes of a minute 

 fraction of my shallow water kingdom, observed in 

 a succession of fleeting moments of time. Its chief 

 value is to show our ignorance of this cosmos — 

 and to stimulate at least my own desire to go and 

 learn more. 



When I reached Cocos Island I had with me a 

 list of thirty-eight species of shore fishes which had 

 been collected twenty-six years ago. Of these I 

 was able to secure and identify twenty-three, in 

 addition to fifty-seven others which had never be- 

 fore been recorded from this lonely island. Dur- 

 ing my stay therefore I observed eighty species, 

 making a total of ninety-five altogether. I have 

 notes on at least a third again as many which were 

 too wary for me, although some of them would 

 swim up to the very glass of my helmet and gaze 

 impudently in at me, and which were quite new 

 species. The details of this fauna, their names and 

 relationships, colors and food belong elsewhere, but 

 I desired here to give a shadowy hint of the mode 

 of life and the personalities of a few, in the piti- 

 fully inadequate method of adulteration through 

 the medium of human thought and words. 



