THE GLASS-BOTTOM BOAT 



767 



CRAYFISH AND STAR-FISH 



catch brilliant flashes of vivid red. This 

 is the Garibaldi, a fish resembling the 

 angel fish of Florida to some extent, 

 but peculiar to this coast. It is very 

 sociable, and comes out, eyeing the boat 

 and doubtless familiar with the strange 

 double row of faces that are looking 

 down at it. The adult Garibaldis are one 

 color, a brilliant golden red, but the 

 young, which can be seen in the crevices, 

 are dotted with brilliant blue, and the 

 skipper calls them "electric fishes" and 

 tells you the spots give out light. 



PHOSPHORESCENT JELLY-FISH 



Suddenly the boat passes over a white 

 and pink jelly-fish. It is two feet across 

 the disk, from which drifts away a won- 

 derful fluted mass of shrimp-pink tenta- 

 cles ten or fifteen feet long. Some of 

 these jellies have been seen with tentacles 

 from twenty to forty feet in length, a 

 veritable comet, and at night a phospho- 

 rescent meteor. 



Near by is another jelly something like 

 this, but almost black — a deep maroon in 



color. The skipper holds the boat over 

 them, and every motion of the curious 

 creature is seen as it opens and shuts and 

 pumps its way through the clear water. 

 Countless small jellies fill the water at 

 times, most graceful shapes; some that 

 have never been described, others rare 

 elsewhere are common here. Such is the 

 Pyrosoma, one of the luminous com- 

 pound Ascidians. It is a barrel-shaped 

 animal with one end open. Specimens 

 six feet long have been seen. Dr. Mose- 

 ley, the English naturalist, describes one 

 which he placed on deck, writing his name 

 on it and seeing the letters come out in 

 lines of fire. The Bay of Avalon is 

 sometimes filled with them, and now we 

 see them pumping their way along be- 

 neath the window-like crystal vases, with 

 other luminous forms, as the giant Salpa, 

 the latter now singly, now in chains, 

 among the most beautiful of the phos- 

 phorescent animals. 



A striking fish is the sheepshead, with 

 black and crimson bands in the male, a 

 gray in the female, shown here. The 



