Camouflage 197 



birds to take precipitately to cover on the appear- 

 ance of a hawk in the neighborhood, and this, no 

 doubt, led me to infer that something of a similar 

 nature had caused the crab and fishes to conceal 

 themselves. I was not wrong. On looking around, a 

 sight greeted me that took away my breath. Several 

 yards distant a school of squids was approaching. The 

 animals did not number over a dozen, but the turmoil of 

 sand that followed in their wake and the swift dartings 

 backward and forward of some, made their numbers 

 appear actually greater. The cause of the silty turmoil 

 was soon made clear. The squids were evidently on the 

 hunt for prey. As they proceeded, now and then an 

 individual would descend to the floor and feel over the 

 surface with a pair of long flexible tentacles. Suddenly 

 these organs would encounter some living object lying 

 unseen on the sand, and a short struggle would ensue in 

 which a cloud of silt and sand was raised. A squid 

 would then emerge into view, holding in Its monstrous 

 tentacles the unresisting form of a flatfish, and swim 

 away, closely accompanied by a couple of its less for- 

 tunate and jealous companions, a hazy reddish trail 

 meanwhile marklnii^ Its course : the blood of its victim 

 which had been bitten through the back. 



