GARDENS OF THE SEA 



199 



along the reefs of coral; file fishes with tawny 

 velvet skins circle the submerged rocks looking 

 for barnacles. 



Swifter moving, more alert, ever eager for 

 prey are the red snappers with rose-red scales 

 and blue-outlined fins, the pompanos traveling 

 in vast schools like their cousins the mackerels, 

 the cabrillas, with dark fins and barred flanks, 

 beating along the bottom for small fish and 

 crabs. And occasionally through these beauti- 

 ful gardens there is a scattering in flight of all 

 the smaller fishes as some lone, black-muzzled 

 porpoise rushes across the scene or thrashes the 

 green water into foam with the eagerness of 

 a capture. The blue sharks are there, too, 

 though they spread less terror than the por- 

 poises. Not even the saw fish — the shark-like 

 bravo with six feet of saw-edged snout with 

 which, it is said, he fights the whale — is so fear- 

 compelling as the plunging, swift-traveling por- 

 poise. 



There is more or less terror in these sea gar- 

 dens at all times. The chase and sudden death 

 are constant happenings, for practically all the 

 ocean dwellers are carnivorous. Each one kills 

 and eats and in turn is killed and eaten. The sea 

 lives upon itself, consuming and is consumed. 

 It might be thought that such self-destruction 



Red 



snappers 

 and pom- 

 panos. 



Sharks and 

 porpoises. 



The chase 

 arul the 

 death. 



