IVONSUCH 



"And next (the goddesses such sandals wear) 

 Of mighty soles, a firm and well-matched pair." 



Radcliff e recounts a tale of South Sea mythology, 

 a sort of Just So story of the flatfish. " Ina the 

 daughter of Vaitooringa attempted flight to the 

 sacred island. Fish after fish essayed to bear her 

 thither, but unequal to the burden, dropped her in 

 the shallow water. At last she besought the sole, 

 who managed to carry her as far as the breakers. 

 Here, again unshipped, she lost her divine temper, 

 and stamped with such fierceness on the head of the 

 unfortunate helper of distressful maids that its un- 

 der eye was squeezed right through to the upper 

 side. Hence the sole is now obliged to swim flat on 

 one side of its face, having no eye on the lower side." 



In mid-May I captured an eight-inch peacock 

 flounder so close to Almost Island that it may have 

 been my first flying carpet. I kept it for many weeks 

 in an ill-aerated aquarium whose occasional lack of 

 oxygen killed all the other inmates, but seemed to 

 cause no inconvenience to the flounder. 



One early morning I crept quietly toward the fish 

 and found it flat as any creature could be and yet 

 live. The bottom of the aquarium had only the thin- 

 nest skim of sand, yet all that was visible was a 

 thickening of this sand near the center: One could 

 not say here the sand ended and there the fish began. 

 I made a sudden movement, and then I saw a slight 

 shift of the grains and realized I was being closely 

 watched by a bright eye through a slit of imitation 



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