in whose mind this question will arise. Yet, for the 

 sake of this single reader, I will explain that to 

 the naturalist, a find of this sort is fraught with 

 the thrill of a book of adventure. He reads in the 

 sundry lines of the fins and tail, a romance of the 

 ages. The very color tells him a story stranger than 

 ever was found in fiction. With lens in hand, an 

 excursion over its surface not rarely brings him to 

 meet with peculiar, unusual, unknown forms — in- 

 habitants of that normally invisible world in 

 which many familiar portions of its teeming popu- 

 lation are wont to reveal themselves in strange 

 and striking aspects . . . But for sheer excite- 

 ment he directs his deductive talents elsewhere — 

 to him, the surface affords mere gleanings ; it is in 

 the digestive tract that the real harvest is to be 

 reaped. I discovered, however, that I was without 

 even a pocket-knife. In my haste to satisfy my 

 curiosity, I had neglected to equip myself with 

 such essentials. Therefore, there was but one re- 

 course — to transport the carcass home, not exactly 

 a light task, for I judge that its weight was not 

 much less than my own. Nor was it a task attended 

 without a certain inconvenience. 



With such handling as I was obliged to use in 



[9] 



