NONSUCH 



shorter. My island is in full illumination from ten 

 to three o'clock, preceded and followed by a pro- 

 longed dawn and dusk. It is as though the eternal 

 night of all except the surface film of ocean was 

 reluctant to admit any light. But my eyes become 

 dusk-adapted very soon and even in cloudy weather 

 I can watch my tenants, Httle and big. 



The reef -cliffs are sandstone, etched and worn 

 into arches, turrets, alleys, tunnels, wells, canyons 

 and a thousand unnamable forms, by the wind and 

 rain of some past glacial age when all were high 

 and dry. This is overlaid and frescoed with great 

 balls of brain coral, and hung and planted with 

 rainbow-tinted seaweed and purple and brown sea- 

 fans and plumes. In and out of the tangled scenery 

 swim hosts of fish, great parti-colored parrots, sur- 

 geons of heavenly blue, angelfish, groupers, rock- 

 fish, snappers, agile wrasse of a hundred colors, 

 and small folk by the dozen. 



But this is not an ichthyological reconnaissance, it 

 is a visit to Almost Island. Access made easy, what 

 can I do? First and last in importance in our work 

 is concentrated observation — remembered facts of 

 color, movement, feeding, sociability, courtship, 

 abundance ; but I wish also to collect any new species 

 I see, or any which defy indentification on the fin. 



First comes the small trident with a three-foot 

 metal handle. This requires the most careful stalk- 

 ing and yields poorest results, yet I have again and 

 again caught a desired fish close to the reef -wall on 

 the sand, and by a very sudden and forceful thrust 



38 



