CAPE SAN ANTONIO 205 



dant supply of sea water and proper irregularity 

 of sides and bottom to offer the necessary hiding- 

 places and relief from the sun, is a veritable 

 biological world in miniature. To describe it 

 adequately would require a volume; even a census 

 of its inhabitants would cover many pages. When 

 first approached it looks merely to be a basin in 

 the rock painted in many colors by its algae which 

 gleam with added brilliancy beneath the two or 

 three feet of transparent water. Of animal life 

 one at first sees little. After quietly gazing into 

 it for a few moments a movement here and there 

 reveals some living thing of almost perfect color 

 adaptation. Presently a school of little metallic 

 blue fish ventures cautiously out from some crevice. 

 A very slight movement in one corner betrays a 

 larger fish, the movement being the opening and 

 closing of the gills, and then the fish is perfectly 

 apparent and the undulating dark lines of his back 

 are quite distinct; and then there is a slight blur 

 of sediment in the spot and the fish is not so plainly 

 visible, for, in fact, he has gone and the place he 

 left looks about the same as it did before. On the 

 floor of the pool there are a number of little highly 

 colored tufts that were not there at first. They 



