as well as the exigencies of their retreats allow — 

 in the shadows or in the fold of a sheltering frond. 



This, then, was my laboratory on a day in June, 

 more than two } r ears after the eventful expedition 

 into the Sound. Two summers and three winters 

 had elapsed since my determination was fixed to 

 read the riddle of their existence. And on this day 

 it seemed that I was at last within reading distance 

 of that riddle . . . 



What assistance I had derived from the litera- 

 ture was negative at best; and some of this help 

 proved, so to speak, actually to be a hindrance. 

 The books I had consulted — and none was more 

 popular in this special field — were all agreed, 

 down to the minutest detail, as to the ancient his- 

 tory of the serpent-stars, delineating with exacti- 

 tude their line of descent and their relationship 

 with the ancestral crinoids; but to facts of their 

 present life history, there was barely more than a 

 reference. Some writers, indeed, ventured to make 

 much of the mystery surrounding the habits of 

 these creatures. With this perplexing aspect, as 

 presented by the books, I was confronted at the 

 start; yet something I saw among their statements 

 led me to take heart. 



[53] 



