FLOUNDERS ARE WONDERFUL 



his spirit was tranquil, his confidence undisturbed, 

 he awaited my next move with alertness, but with- 

 out worry. 



My hand lens had restricted my view to the eyes 

 and their immediate vicinity and when my protest- 

 ing muscles compelled me to lower the lens my 

 mind received another shock. I had so long and in- 

 tensively been preoccupied with the seeming intelli- 

 gence of these sophisticated eyes that I had for- 

 gotten the rest of the owner. Unconsciously I looked 

 for concomitant features and head. 



Imagine gazing into two expressive human eyes, 

 in which you seem to read character, sympathy and 

 all splendid human attributes, and then suddenly 

 to take a wider view and see to your horror that the 

 eyes are protuding from the cheek and temple of 

 the distorted face. This is not such an absurd meta- 

 phor, for I experienced something of the same thing 

 when I saw anew the twisted mouth and the out- 

 rageous position of the flounder's eyes. Back I went 

 to my lens, and my mind re-insisted that I was look- 

 ing at the eyes of some friendly, normal fellow crea- 

 ture which for some reason was perched upon the 

 back of this prostrate flounder. 



One more surprise was in store for me. When I 

 had had the flounder for a week, he had been for 

 some time the sole survivor of the tank. I then cap- 

 tured a three-inch wrasse and dropped him in. For 

 some reason I stayed and watched the wrasse swim 

 leisurely about near the surface. The flounder also 

 saw the new-comer and both eyes were brought to 



107 



