Catching Menhaden off Montauk 



r 



within with a wonderful changing flame. Gleam- 

 ing, shifting, lambent waves of color flashed and 

 paled before my entranced eyes gray, as the fishes 

 turned their backs, sweeping brightly back with 

 a thousand brilliant tints as they showed their 

 sides soft, undefined, and mutable, down there 

 under the green glass of the sea; while, to show 

 them the better, myriads of minute medusae car- 

 ried hither and thither glittering little phosphores- 

 cent lanterns in gossamer frames and transparent 

 globes. 



All possible slack having now been taken in, the 

 steamer approaches, and towing us away to deeper 

 water, for we are drifting toward a lee shore, 

 comes to a standstill, and the work of loading 

 begins. The cork line is lifted up and made fast 

 to the steamer's bulwarks, to which the boats have 

 already attached themselves at one end, holding 

 together at the other. This crowds all the bunk- 

 ers together in a mass between the two boats and 

 the steamer's side, where the water boils with the 

 churning of thousands of active fins. A twenty- 

 foot oar is plunged into the mass, but will not 

 suffice to sound its living depths. Then a great 



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