340 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



from the trunk. Skin smooth; a long tentacle on 

 the throat." 



Is it not a very sad thing that we must admit 

 that the first description refers to a fairy-story 

 dragon, and the second to a very live fish, first 

 cousin to that in Figure One of this book! 



Some time ago when I had read and written 

 scientific facts until my brain whirled, I sought 

 relief one evening by looking at dragon pictures 

 by Parrish and Rackham, and then I became scien- 

 tific again to the extent of comparing them with 

 colored plates which I had had made of deep sea 

 fishes. To my delight I found that I could dupli- 

 cate or actually improve upon every character of 

 dragons or gargoyles. After one has become ac- 

 quainted with the everyday inhabitants — villagers, 

 aristocrats, commoners — living today in the deep 

 sea, Dunsany, Barry, Blackwood, Grimm, Sime — 

 all these lose force as inventors of fairies, hobgoblins 

 and elves, and become mere nature fakers. For in 

 these abyssmal regions there are fish which can 

 outdragon or outmipt any mere figment of the im- 

 agination; crustaceans are there to which the gar- 

 goyles of Notre Dame, the fiends of Dante's Pur- 

 gatory appear usual and normal. 



I wonder, if at some momentous happening in 

 life everyone does not have the sudden recurrence 

 of an emotion which has not been experienced since 

 early childhood. Mere height or depth never 

 affected me, — I could always look with pleasur- 

 able exhilaration over the edge of a precipice or 

 down from a roof. But sometimes under the stars, 



