ISLANDS 49 



tween the moving grass and the more distant 

 hand that wields it. 



Bound to the ground by their short scales 

 and four limbs, these small lizards are yet re- 

 markably birdlike in their vivacity and their 

 enthusiastic playing of their little game of life. 

 Every motion is registered by quick wrenhke 

 movements and by the changing play of colors 

 over their scales, while when particularly ex- 

 cited, they puff out a comical dewlap of yellow 

 and orange skin beneath their throat. Thanks 

 to my flapper acquaintance I am now on more 

 equal terms with the little scaly people of the 

 islands, and can study their puzzling color 

 problems at close range. 



Looking back at Bluebeard's and Black- 

 beard's castles from the deck of our vessel as we 

 slowly steamed from the harbor, some one asked 

 when the last pirate plied his trade. I looked 

 ashore at the fort and guns, I listened to the 

 warning bugle, I watched the scattered lights 

 vanish, leaving all of the town in darkness, I 

 saw our own darkened portholes and shaded 

 lights. As my mind went to the submarines 

 which inspired all these precautions, as I re- 

 called the sinister swirl in the Atlantic which 



