"What on earth do you suppose those gigantic fish feed on?" asked Brown
under his breath.
I thought a moment longer, then it came to me in a flash of
understanding, and I pointed at the dead trees.
"Bats!" I muttered. "They feed on bats as other fish feed on the little,
gauzy-winged flies which dance over ponds! You saw those bats flying over
the pond last night, didn't you? That explains the whole thing! Don't you
understand? Why, what we saw were these gigantic fish leaping like trout
after the bats. It was their feeding time!"
I do not imagine that two more excited scientists ever existed than Brown
and I. The joy of discovery transfigured us. Here we had discovered a
lake in the Thunder Mountains which was the deepest lake in the world;
and it was inhabited by a few gigantic fish of the minnow species, the
existence of which, hitherto, had never even been dreamed of by science.
"Kitten," I said, my voice broken by emotion, "which will you have named
after you, the lake or the fish? Shall it be Lake Kitten Brown, or shall
it be _Minnius kittenii_? Speak!"
"What about that old party whose name you said had already been given to
the lake?" he asked piteously.
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