LOG OF THE ARCTURUS 395 



birds, and frigatebirds dived for the abundant food that was concen- 

 trated here, or rested, fullfed and lazy, on the water. Numbers of 

 logs and pieces of timber bore each a row of gorged boobies, and the 

 phalaropes that flushed before the slowly-moving Arcturus foUowed 

 in their flight the curves of the current rip as carefully as though it 

 had been a cleared trail through a forest. A school of five or six 

 hundred dolphins leaped and played to and fro across the line, and 

 the blue and silver of a myriad flyingfish flickered everywhere. 

 Great patches of the sea were colored deep purple by countless 

 millions of tiny Salpae, and every drop of water held a bright little 

 Copepod. Under the shelter of the floating logs lurked fish, feeding 

 on the worms and crabs that covered the rotting wood, and larger 

 fishes, such as the gleaming Coryphaena, in turn fed on them. Several 

 of these logs were hoisted on deck and from them fish and inverte- 

 brates were taken. Two large turtles drifted peacefully past, and a 

 little later, a sea-snake was scooped up from the boom-walk. We put 

 over small boats and rowed about, catching pelagic anemones, Porpita, 

 Glaucus, Halobates, balls of moUusk eggs, lanthinas, beautiful white- 

 winged flyingfish and hosts of crustaceans. There were always sharks 

 tacking about the ship, and one was harpooned. The Arcturus drift- 

 ing along the rip to-night, seemingly magnetized and held to it as 

 completely as one of the logs. 



Noon position; 2° 26' N; 85° 23' W. 



April 2nd. Still drifting in the rip. In the night we heard break- 

 ers, a startling sound till we realized it was noise of the spouting white- 

 caps that mark this zoologists' paradise. During the night we drifted 

 eleven miles to the westward and turned completely around twice, 

 but never left the rip. At 8 a. m. put over the Petersen trawl but 

 the conflicting currents threw it about until it went under the stem 

 and the bridle caught on a propeller blade. The boatswain and a 

 sailor cut it and after re-rigging the trawl, we towed for an hour 

 but got only a mass of salpae and pteropods. While it was out, we 

 steamed slowly west along the rip and every moment was exciting. 

 Caught two more sea-snakes and a 32-pound Coryphaena which had 

 been feeding on paper nautilus, shells and all. A twelve-foot hammer- 

 head shark stayed with us for some time but refused to be either 

 harpooned or baited. Several deep-sea hauls proved unprofitable, 

 bringing in only a few specimens of Cyclothone from 500 meters. 

 This is decidedly a surface region. Night collecting from the gang- 

 way under bunch-lights is a weird feeling; the black water surround- 

 ing the small circle of intense light, the roll of the ship which, slight 

 though it is, seems much greater under these circumstances and 

 which throws the water into a turmoil now and then; the vaguely- 

 seen forms gliding in the depths or suddenly taking shape as they 

 come swiftly toward the surface, and the difficulty of judging distance 

 with the lights altering perspective make the proceeding rather dream- 

 like. Squids are very numerous and of every size from three inches 

 to three or four feet. One huge one shot out of the water twice, 

 with tentacles reaching at the gangway; it must have been at least 



