50 A NOVICE IN THE ANDAMANS 



museums and books. Looking back after thirteen 

 years, I can only remember visions of fairy groves 

 and glades, lit by a strange ethereal light, half moon 

 half sun, where, among Christmas-trees of purple and 

 blue and golden green, fishes painted like butterflies 

 flitted and hovered. 



After some preliminary dreams we used the water- 

 glass for the practical purpose of spotting desirable 

 specimens, which lascars, armed with crow-bars, dived 

 for and sometimes secured, until our boat was full. 

 Then we went back to the ship, where I fancied the 

 officer on duty received us with a certain amount of 

 constraint, for he knew — what I had still to learn — that 

 the result of that day's work would provide the ship 

 with good store of intolerable smells for a fortnight, 

 decaying coral flesh being only one degree less ancient 

 and fish-like in odour than very old whale-blubber. 



In that day's collection were many genera and 

 species of corals which even yet I have never found 

 time to identify with certainty. 



What chiefly concerned me at the moment was 

 to search out and preserve from my quarry all the 

 numberless small sea-animals that live in the crevices 

 of growing coral, much as small land - animals live 

 among the leaves and branches of trees and shrubs. 

 Even as a beginner, I was able to pick out several 

 species of fishes, several kinds of mollusks and mollus- 

 coids, a multitude of small crabs and other crustaceans, 



