At the appointed time the boys were at the boat, and with the rest of the party. Just before they embarked, Frank saw a handsome butterfly on a stalk near by, and managed to capture it. The Doctor pronounced it a fine specimen, and it was immediately stowed away in the box kept for prizes of this sort. "First game for the day," said Frank. "Now, who will have the next?" Fred made no response, but eyed the water intently, as he saw something moving in it close to the shore. Seizing a hand-net that lay on the ground, he made a sudden swoop in the water, and brought up a prize. [Illustration: FRED'S PRIZE--THE MUD-LAFF.] "Second game for me!" he shouted, as he deposited on the ground a strange-looking fish, with a mouth opening directly upward instead of being placed where the respectable fish is accustomed to have his mouth. Below the head there was a spongy and shapeless mass, with the ventral fins attached, and the whole length of the fish was covered with a glutinous substance that stuck to the grass and weeds, where he had been dropped. Along the back was a row of spines, that rose and fell alternately, as though they were trying to pierce something. Both the boys pronounced the fish the ugliest product of the water they had ever looked upon, and the Doctor said the American sculpin was a model of beauty compared to this monster. "His scientific name," said Doctor Bronson, "is _Synanceia brachia_, and he is popularly known as the mud-laff. He abounds in tropical waters, and in most Asiatic countries he is eaten by the natives; but the Europeans will have nothing to do with him. He lies in the mud and weeds at the bottom of rivers, and is quite concealed from view. You observe he has sharp eyes, which peer up through the water and watch for his prey; when it comes in his reach he sucks it in with a single inhalation, and this is why his mouth is so oddly placed. The spines on his back are poisonous, and if you should be pricked with them you would have a painful wound that might last you for weeks. Mr. Pike, in his 'Sub-Tropical Rambles,' tells of a man in the Mauritius who was stung on the sole of his foot by a mud-laff; the foot and leg swelled enormously, and after some days the wound sloughed, leaving a large hole. It was more than two months before the man was able to leave the hospital." CHAPTER VIII. SHOOTING BATS AND IGUANAS.--VISITING THE HOT SPRINGS. There were two boats to-day instead of three, and the course was laid for an island three or four miles away. On the way thither their host intimated that they were to have a kind of sport they had never seen in America, and perhaps had never heard of. It might be a disappointment, as it did not require much skill, but in any event it would be a novelty. "Wait till we get there," said he, "and then you will know what it is. "If we have time," he continued, "I will show you a very curious place called the Lake of Socolme."