urned to see
that his father and the doctor had been gazing down into the water from
the other side of the boat. "Only for a few minutes, captain: we must
not pass over this too quickly."

"You have only to give your orders, sir," said the captain, smiling with
satisfaction; and as the men sat with their oars balanced, the boat
glided slowly on, hardly disturbing the surface; but her shadow was
sufficient as it darkened the water to still startle the fish from their
homes.

"Here's work, Meadows--here's collecting. Jack, boy, what do you think
of it?"

"Oh!" ejaculated the lad, without raising his eyes from the wondrous
scene he was watching once more.

There does not seem much in that simple little interjection; but the
meaning put into it by the tone and the face of the lad who uttered it
spoke volumes.

"Ah, it is oh!" cried the doctor. "Here, Jack, it's all nonsense, I
can't be thirty-six; I feel only sixteen, and I want to begin wading in
here."

"I'd advise you to wear very thick boats then," said the captain. "Some
of these things are knife-edged, some sharp as thorns. You'll have to
take care."

"Oh, we will; eh, Jack?"

"Yes; but we must get a lot of these as specimens. Here, look--look!"

"Ah, one of those snakes," said Sir John. "One? Look--look! there are
dozens of them gliding about."

"Then I shan't wade," said the doctor decisively. "I don't want any
patients this trip, and there wouldn't be much fun in laying myself up
with a bad leg, and having myself to attend. I shall do my wading in a
boat."

"Yes; and we must fish for and catch some of these little fellows. Do,
father, look at that one gliding along by that clump of branched stuff,
plant or coral, or whatever it calls itself. Why it's like a gold-fish
with a great, broad bar of glittering blue across it."

"Lovely!" cried the doctor.

A discordant burst of shrill, whistling screams came from the cocoa-nut
grove ashore, and Jack looked up sharply.

"Paroquets," said the captain. "There they are, quite a flock of them."

Jack's hand stole behind him toward the guns and just then there was a
fluttering of wings, and a little cloud of green, shot with orange
yellow and blue, glided out of the grove and flew inland.

"Let's land," said Sir John. "There is so much to see, that we had
better content ourselves with a preliminary look round."

"Yes," said the doctor, "and devote separate days after to some
particular bra