NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 359 



tive. There were several masses clustered together in the midst 

 of a large crevasse where they hung in midwater like a living 

 ball. The ball floated lazily up and down with the action of the 

 surf but the individuals held their exact positions to the frac- 

 tion of an inch. Each fish was facing in the same direction, and 

 while I watched, the entire group slowly revolved as though 

 on a pivot. 



I let my light play over their motionless forms and then 

 switched it to the crevassed floor and back along its slope to 

 the mouth of a narrow festooned cave. Here I was startled to 

 see a row of seven pairs of gleaming teeth floating in mid-air 

 with no evidence of bodies. Two pairs were bright bluish 

 green, four were whitish and one had a very perceptible rosy 

 hue. They suggested nothing quite so much as the nightmare 

 of an inebriated dentist on the verge of delirium tremens. The 

 teeth backed into the cave until they were nearly out of sight; 

 and following, I climbed over an immense sponge and pointed 

 the light directly into their shelter. The seven pair of teeth then 

 resolved into the bodies of seven pairs of assorted large parrot- 

 fish, four olive green fellows at least two feet in length, two red 

 ones with prominently marked scales and one of variegated hue. 



Backing out again I examined other holes and fissures. Nearly 

 everyone was filled with fish, some of these were floating quite 

 motionless except for slight wavings of their pectoral fins. 

 Others, including the sergeant-majors, readily identifiable by 

 their vivid yellow stripes, were restlessly pacing back and forth, 

 but remaining well within the Hmits of their abodes. A cluster 

 of eleven butterfly-fish had the most unusual sleeping arrange- 

 ment of all. They did not elect to dispose of themselves in the 

 dark of the cave but had taken up their positions under a stone 

 arch, shaped somewhat like the famous Natural Bridge of 

 Virginia. Here they had arranged themselves in a vertical 

 column poised midway between the bottom and the top. If 



