68 Fish Stories 



yacht, her black hull rising and falling in sky or water (I 

 could not tell which, as in the dead, absolute calm, the sky 

 line was obliterated), the white sails folding and unfolding 

 as shadows seemed to follow one another over them. I 

 was in a garden miles at sea, a green feathery fabric of 

 most graceful design, normally green in rich hues and tints, 

 it was overgrown, here and there, with the vivid white in- 

 crustations of minute lime-depositing animals — Membrani- 

 pora — so that in some instances it was like old lace thrown 

 over green. Every leaf was a mine of life; every frond 

 pulsated with living creatures; every drop of water that 

 rose and fell in this oceanic hanging garden of the Gulf 

 Stream was a world of varied forms. 



As I peered down into the sapphire sea, I saw other won- 

 ders : halls, loops, corridors, graceful and beautiful, a maze 

 of secluded retreats for countless animals. If some magi- 

 cian had cast a spell over this submarine world the result 

 could not have been more strange. Some magician of 

 nature had given the command that all the forms that peo- 

 pled the hanging garden should take on colors exactly like it, 

 and every crab, shrimp, every naked mollusk, every fish, 

 was green or green and white, almost the exact tint of the 

 color upon which it rested, a notable illustration of an adap- 

 tation to surroundings, resulting in almost perfect protec- 

 tion, as no gull or predaceous sea bird could have seen any 

 of the crabs which lay on the surface, nestled among the 

 myriad mimic buoys, which floated this garden of the sea. 



It was but a short distance to another river; indeed, I 

 could compare it to nothing but open water in an ice field, 

 which I had once seen, so I forced the dinghy over or 

 through the sargassum, and entered a new sapphire stream. 

 The moment I did so, there rose two or three radiant 

 gurnards, dashing out of the water, glistening in the sun- 

 light, scintillating with tints of vivid blue, red, yellow and 

 white, their wide wing-like fins vibrating, fluttering, not 

 beating, for a moment, then becoming rigid, and bearing the 



