3 26 Life in the Open 



eyes dotting the sea. Suddenly they disappear, as 

 though some shutter had been snapped, and into the 

 field dash a school of large sea-bass, the splendid game 

 fish of this region. Again the window approaches shoal 

 water, and for several miles it follows along this fishes' 

 highway, providing the voyagers with an ever-changing 

 panorama of marine scenery. Now it will be a shoal of 

 blue perch, a fish that affects the kelp forest and 

 presents a sharp contrast to it in its vivid tint. 



These fish like to bask and sport near the surface, 

 and the window appears full of them as it moves along. 

 Rock bass, singly and in schools, are seen poised in 

 alcoves of the kelp, richly striped brown and black ; and 

 here the radiant " white " fish, as blue as the water, with 

 long and beautiful fins, while in the depths below 

 other and interesting forms are seen, all slightly 

 magnified by the glass. 



In and out, now in shallows where the velvet-like 

 rocks are near the surface, now offshore, following in 

 the trail of some vagrant shark, the shallow steamer 

 moves, affording strange vistas of the sea and its secrets, 

 and emphasising the fact that a new method of study 

 has been found in the field of popular science that is at 

 once a pastime and recreation. 



