350 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



It was semi-solid and looked as if made up of a 

 thousand bits of parti-colored glass and jewels, — 

 the living loot, motionless and inchoate, of some 

 abyssmal Aladdin's cave. 



I poured water upon it, and with the dilution 

 came disintegration of the plankton. As the tens 

 of thousands of atoms of jewelled jelly fell apart, 

 each assumed the shape and character of a complete 

 individual, and at once began to kick or breathe or 

 swim or throb after its kind. Visible blood started 

 to circulate, hearts were distinctly seen to pulsate in 

 the depths of glassy bodies, enemies leaped at one 

 another's throats (or whatever they possessed in 

 lieu of such a region) , and on the instant of watery 

 liberty, feathery-footed males danced and whirled 

 in courtship ecstasy about their less ornamented 

 mates. These are no meaningless, flowery phrases, 

 for within a minute after dilution, the jelly mass 

 under my binoculars exhibited every emotion 

 known to invertebrates. 



The general color of this concentrated animal 

 life was a rich salmon, picked out with spots of 

 dark brown, black, maroon, purple, and with scar- 

 let so deep and vivid that it instantly attracted and 

 hypnotically held the eye. Near one spot of this 

 violently insistent color an acrobat drew my atten- 

 tion. Although he was floating freely, his actions 

 seemed curiously limited. He might have been 

 clinging to an invisible bar and doing gymnastics 

 on it. I spooned him out and his restraint became 

 understandable. Again I call on Diogenes for 

 comparison, for it was as if that cynic philosopher 



