NONSUCH 



Halobates, the only insects that have mastered the 

 open ocean, were in the sHcks in small numbers, and 

 linked them closely with the land, just as last night 

 on my laboratory table two little water boatmen 

 came to my light and miserably rowed themselves 

 about over the plate glass until I took pity and gave 

 them a saucer of water. Theirs is a brave spirit. It 

 seems absurd to think of bugs as admirable explor- 

 ers, yet it is Halohates, and Halohates alone, which 

 can penetrate the most distant waters of the At- 

 lantic and the Pacific and call them home. 



When at last we turned back to the tug, eight 

 blackfish whales rolled and curved across our path 

 like ancient, rheumatic dolphins. When still fifty 

 yards off, all rose a little higher than usual, bent into 

 eight segments of circles and unhurriedly but ef- 

 fectively vanished forever. There was no splash, 

 only eight small slicks marking the spot where 

 dozens of tons of small whales had sunk. The 

 smoothness spread and spread, and finally coa- 

 lesced, and then our motor's wake tore it into shreds 

 of foam. 



In sargassum weed there lives a fish so like the 

 fronds and berries in shape and color and pattern 

 that we almost credit the goose-barnacle story of 

 medieval times — that proper birds and animals can 

 spring full-grown from plants and barnacles and 

 such. And when a nest of many small fish eggs was 

 found in the weed, the inference was obvious. Sixty 

 years ago, Louis Agassiz reported this tale of the 

 frogfish, or Pterophryne, and since then only poor 



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