Sometimes there are fish, pieces of coral, bits of rock, legs or even a whole starfish, many sea cucumbers and once or twice a strange fish with curious contraptions for lighting his way around, a long tentacle or barbel out in front of him with a light on it, or a bulb on top of his head on a curious trailer thing out in front of his mouth so other fish will be decoyed in front of him and he then swallows them.
When the dredge is coming in we stand around to see what it brings up. For two hours the cable will be coming in and winding up on the huge drum by machinery, then at [[81]]last the net shows under the water. Everyone hurries to the side and holds dishes or buckets or tubs of water into which to dump specimens.
And the crew help, one at the engine, one oiling wire as it winds on the drum, and two or three of us beating the cable with heavy clubs to shake off the water as much as possible to keep it from rusting.
Many of the deep sea things are very bright red. The shrimps, the starfish and the cucumbers are different colors, reddish, yellowish white, purple, and even a bright bluish one came up.
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PANAMA
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