A Movable Feast 253 



just a haven of refuge for a veritable host of deep-sea 

 folks, all attracted to it by the harbourage it gave to 

 such creatures as were capable of supplying them with 

 food. 



In the first place, it was closely covered with bar- 

 nacles, those curious shell fish which abound ever-ywhere 

 at sea, being seemingly evolved out of nothing, so 

 quickly do they appear upon any sea-washed substance, 

 such as a ship's bottom or a floating log. They 

 are attached to their home by a gelatinous footstalk, 

 at the end of which their white shells, almost like 

 those of a miniature mussel, except in colour, grow. 

 Normally these footstalks are very short, or only 

 about an inch in length, as when the barnacle is at- 

 tached to a swiftly moving object. But on this log 

 they averaged two feet in length, looking curiously 

 like an immense mass of large-sized boiled macaroni 

 growing out of the^log and waving about with graceful 

 undulations. This great tangle of \ving filaments 

 was densely populated by all sorts of small fish, 

 Crustacea of various kinds, etc. Outside, but very 

 close to, were somewhat larger fish, eating their fill 

 of the bountiful feast provided. And a little farther 

 off still, coming and going with stealthy rushings, 

 were several Dolphin, busily engaged in filling their 

 maws with the smaller fish. It was a splendid exposi- 

 tion of the chain of interdependence subsisting in 

 the sea, only of course we could not follow that chain 

 far, the base of it being among the creatures invisible 

 except to a high-power microscope. 



But while I watched I saw a splendid Dolphin, 

 his coat flashing its sapphire and gold under the rays 

 of the sun, passing with leisurely tail-waving the side 

 of the log nearest to me, apparently satiated with food. 

 A dim shadow emerged from beneath the log just 



