90 Naturalist at Large 



he to collect mollusks and I to see if I could turn up Cri- 

 cosaura. 



Wc went to Manzanillo and then by launch down the 

 coast to Niquero, where we got a sailboat to go to the 

 Cape. We were late getting started, and of course the wind 

 died out. So our boatman and I rowed Don Carlos until 

 about midnight, when we found a landing place behind 

 the hook on which the great lighthouse stands. Our journey 

 was delightful. The sea was as calm as calm could be, phos- 

 phorescent, like molten silver. I believe we could have 

 read a book by the light produced each time we dipped 

 our oars, and each fish that darted from our bow was like 

 a meteor in the sky. 



Once a pez agujon, one of those hopping billfishes, came 

 skittering along on its tail, half out of water, and struck 

 the gunwale of our boat. If it had been a few inches higher 

 out of water it might have injured one of us badly, for 

 these long, slim fishes (this one was two and a half feet 

 long), with a beak like an ice pick and curious bright 

 green bones, propel themselves with incredible speed. This 

 one had been frightened by a porpoise or by a larger fish, 

 and came skittering right against the side of our little 

 dinghy. Of course we carried no light, as that would have 

 invited visits from other billfish. 



We came ashore to hear the clanging of iron shutters. 

 The lighthouse keepers, who had heard the bow of our craft 

 scrape on the beach, were taking no chances, and we sat 

 outside on the concrete platform around the lighthouse for 

 a long time before Don Carlos finally persuaded them that 

 we were not bandits. In due season we were taken in and 

 given hammocks. The next morning, bright and early, I was 



