248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



solid liead corals, large and small, fluted and knobbed, and often with 

 their somber colors of brown and gray suggesting the head of some 

 ancient monk half buried in the sands, while the coral branches still 

 bear upon their tips the brilliant purple of the priest's altar robes. 



It is a quiet scene. There is no glare. The colors are clear and 

 living. It is a garden of animals, but few of which are capable of 

 motion, though the currents and waves carry some of the slender forms 

 to and fro in a semblance of voluntary activity. Other forms rigidly 

 keep their one position. Never a sound is heard from these depths. 

 Never comes a perfume or an odor from this garden. If we pluck one 

 of these flowers from its home, it collapses and fades. We are allowed 

 a glimpse of this new world, but never an approach into it, and we are 

 left to marvel at Nature's lavish extravagance in creating life. 



The active denizens of this luxuriant garden are the fish that dart 

 from clump to clump of coral, or prowl among the broken rocks, or 

 hover in swarms about some, single coral head, or listlessly rest in the 

 hollows of the bottom. The bright colors of tropical fish are well 

 known. Red, blue, green and yellow are painted on them in intricate 

 and bizarre patterns. More striking even than their surroundings, 

 most of these fish apparently do not seek protection by inconspicuous 

 coloration. The reef fish form a class by themselves. Once in a wliile, 

 a gray shark helps himself to the spoils after the disturbance of the 

 dynamite shot has been forgotten; a sea-turtle flaps his way under tlie 

 boat and, rising to the surface fifty yards away, thrusts his crooked head 

 and neck out of the water for a more careful scrutiny of the intruder; 

 and an eel searches through the holes in the coral or gracefully waves 

 his ribbon-like form over the ledge into the next submarine gorge. 



The patient drawing of the seine along the beaches yields an entirely 

 different group of fish, most of them slender, swift swimmers and light 

 or silvery in color. In the tide pools left among the rocks, are found 

 grotesque little scorpion fishes and blennies and gobies. The seining 

 party usually divides its time between the beach and a small river the 

 tidal portion of which winds its tortuous way through a monotonous 

 mangrove swamp. As the boat is pulled between the glistening, green 

 liedges of mangrove trees which line the sluggish, muddy water-way, 

 even the hum of gnats and mosquitoes, the harsh cry of a bird, the snap- 

 ping of the oysters and clams in the mud left uncovered by the receding 

 tide, and the occasional splash of a big lizard dropping into the water, 

 add to the solitude of the dismal waste. In the soutliern paity of tiie 

 archipelago almost every bay and inlet is partly filled with mangroves 

 and they often form a fringe three of four miles wide along the shore. 



The results from dredging cover almost the full range of the marine 

 animal kingdom. There is usually a great quantity of mud in the net, 

 much of which can be washed out by towing the net at the surface of 



