THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



bottom. The most attractive picture the angler sees through the 

 glass-bottom boat is the maze of viaes in blue water, popularly- 

 known as kelp. These plants of the sea are of vast length, often 

 one or two hundred feet, with huge leaves which coil and writhe 

 in the current, lying on the surface at low tide or deeply covered 

 at the flood, but always the home and resort and protection of a 

 score of animals of the sea and many game fishes. 



We may in imagination follow the angler in the glass-bottom 

 boat, peering down into the ocean through the plates of glass. 

 They slightly magnify, and as the boat moves along every object 

 upon the bottom is seen with great distinctness : dehcate surf- 

 fishes of silvery hue, imitating the bottom, famous in that their 

 young are born alive ; small fiat-fishes related to the flounder, 

 or hahbut, whose eye passes around so that in the adult fish both 

 are upon one side, the upper. We can see the delicate furrows 

 in the sand that the incoming waves carve on the bottom of the 

 sea. There is the trail of the trochus shell, a veritable submarine 

 plow, that deflects to avoid the attractive coUar egg-case of another 

 shell. Deeper becomes the water, and we begin to see the diapha- 

 nous haze or colour of the sea, now a faint, tremulous green, or a 

 suggestion of blue. A school of frightened sardines dash into 

 view, eyes staring, black, white, a flash of sflver, and they are 

 gone. Small kelp-fishes, sinuous and dust-coloured, are seen 

 on the bottom ; a sea-anemone that would fill a saucer lies in 

 the sand, covered with bits of shell — a queer defence. Deeper 

 stiU becomes the water, and a series of ejaculations come from 

 the voyagers as into view merge the radiant gardens of the sea. 

 If a moving-picture machine were projecting its views into the 

 water a better idea of a novel moving-picture could not be 

 imagined, as every moment there is a change — new plants, new 

 fishes, strange animals, and the gentle waves aid in this, by un- 

 folding and folding the splendid verdure of the sea. It is indeed 

 a moving-picture, and each observer peers down into the home 

 of some of the most interesting and little-known of ocean wonders. 



The boat is now within a few feet of the shore, the stern in 

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