378 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



toward, a source of food such as this — doubtless 

 getting a faint aroma of the floating debris from a 

 long way down wind, or, on the other hand, perceiv- 

 ing and instantly interpreting any f ocussed activity 

 or unusually directed flight on the part of a distant 

 fellow bird, when upwind or far off to one side. 



The mist on the horizon rose gradually after 

 sunset and smudged out first one star after an- 

 other until there was only a handful overhead in 

 the neck of the mist. This cloudiness presaged a 

 good night for plankton — for all the floating or- 

 ganisms which love the darkness are kept down far 

 below the surface by the rays of light from both 

 sun and moon, apparently as unable to face the 

 light waves as if they were a rain of venomous fiery 

 arrows. 



I had the gangway put down after eight in the 

 evening, and with a cluster of electric lights fo- 

 cus sed on the water sought to learn something of 

 the surface night life haunting the darkness here 

 thirty leagues from Broadway. It is a curious 

 thing that while the creatures which swim on the 

 surface at this time hate the light, yet when they 

 come within the influence of a focussed search- 

 light, or any beam of great concentration and 

 strength, they are unable to resist it, there is 

 aroused a reaction of fascination, and instead of 

 fleeing they are compelled to enter its circle and 

 swim back and forth in the glare of its influence. 

 The first to come were the squids, but any hypnotic 

 force which may have drawn them hither became 

 subordinated to their ravenous hunger when prey 



