"Ah, there, my beautiful 'Piscatorius Animata Catfisio,'" he would say, as he seized a struggling sea monster with a firm grip and plunged it into one of his tin tanks. "I'll dissect you to-night. You are the finest specimen of your kind I have ever seen."
The boys were suddenly interrupted in their fishing by blood-curdling yells from the old scientist. Looking up in alarm they saw him dancing about on the deck holding his arm as if in great pain, while in front of him on the deck a queer-looking, flat fish with a long barbed tail flopped about, its great goggle eyes projecting hideously.
Frank ran forward to pick up the creature and throw it overboard, but as he grasped it he experienced a shock that knocked him head over heels. As he fell backward he collided with the professor and the two sprawled on the deck with the professor howling louder than ever.
"No wonder they're hurt," shouted Ben Stubbs, coming up with a long boat-hook, "that's an electric ray."
"An electric what?" asked Billy.
"An electric ray. They carry enough electricity in them to run a small lamp, and when they wish they can give you a powerful shock. They kill their prey that way."
"Ouch—," exclaimed the professor, who had by this time got up, "the ray nearly killed me. Let me look at the brute so that I'll know one of them again."
"Why don't you put him in your collection?" asked Frank with a smile, although his arm still hurt him where the electric ray had shocked it.
"I want no such fish as that round me, sir," said the professor indignantly, and ordered Ben to throw the creature overboard with his boat-hook.
After supper that night the boys hung about the decks till bedtime. The hours passed slowly and they amused themselves by watching the moonlit shores and speculating on the whereabouts of the Patagonians.