DAHLAK KEBIR, DESERT IN THE SEA 75 



particular care to choose a zone which was ichthyologically 

 suitable. Our search for this was long, and ended only when 

 we found a sector of the coral barrier where examples of 

 species not yet in our collection were to be found. Two of us 

 stayed in the boat or on the rocks, ready to jump into the 

 water immediately after the explosion, while the third put a 

 match to the fuse, counted three, and threw. The bomb sank 

 to the bottom, the fuse sizzled in frantic bubbles, then it 

 exploded, muffled in one large bubble of water. From that 

 moment the hunt began. 



First we gathered up the larger fish that rose from half- 

 depth to the surface, and then, as the dense cloud of sand 

 subsided, we began the interminable up and down of free-air 

 immersion, searching in every hole and cranny, under the 

 muddy sand that began to resettle on the bottom, retrieving 

 every type offish. We found the strangest kinds of demoiselle 

 fish, two species of minute sky-blue and white fish that make 

 their nests constantly and exclusively among the protective 

 spines of sea-urchins ; those other odd animals, cousins of the 

 sea-horse, only half a finger in length and thin as bits of 

 string, their serpent-like bodies striped in yellow and their 

 beaks trumpet-formed; newly-born moray-eels, fibrous as 

 earth-worms, not more than four inches long; coralline fish 

 which we had never seen before, found hidden in the most 

 exiguous folds of the corals ; Lilliputian crustaceans whose 

 classification is still a mystery to us — I could fill pages with 

 the names of the creatures we foimd. 



Fishes and other animals (sea-urchins, star-fish, hola- 

 thurians, etc.) we collected carefully with our hands, or, if 

 necessary, with a kind of butterfly-net. We wore large canvas 

 or rubber gloves, indispensable if our skin was not to be torn 

 to shreds. It was often necessary to fumble for a long time 

 among the more concealed mazes, surrounded by or built of 



