l^^ONSUCH 



bear. It then left the bottom and slowly undulated 

 upward. When still some distance away, its mouth 

 opened wider than in normal breathing, in a gasp of 

 sorts, and when I turned and looked for the wrasse 

 it had vanished — I was about to add, with more of a 

 truism than a simile — as if swallowed up. 



My eye had recorded not even a flicker; the 

 wrasse had made no struggle or effort. One moment 

 it had been swimming and the next it was not there. 

 I tried two more wrasse, with identical results ex- 

 cept that by watching unwinkingly I was able to 

 see a confused quiver in the water between wrasse 

 and flounder. But it in no way accounted to my 

 brain for what must have happened ; my human eye- 

 sight was geared too low. The feat was possible only 

 by a sudden, tremendously powerful current of 

 water sucked in through the mouth and out at the 

 gills, engulfing the helpless wrasse headlong in the 

 oral maelstrom. 



Finally I tried a small puffer and for once my 

 peacock flounder was baffled. Though with light- 

 ning swiftness the watery vortex surged past, the 

 little chap's inflating machinery worked still more 

 rapidly, and this time the gastronomic sleight-of- 

 hand ended in the flounder's ejecting a half -circular, 

 unswallowable, completely self-possessed, small, 

 prickly puffer. 



I had watched a flying carpet bank in spirals 

 about me, six and thirty feet beneath the surface; 

 I had seen sheer magic worked in my aquarium; I 

 had looked into eyes which somehow deserved 



108 



