IVONSUCH 



in the aquarium is a tiny crustacean, one of the un- 

 told myriads which inhabit all the seas in the world. 

 The seahorse has also seen the copepod, but he 

 wishes to keep me under surveillance as well. Slowly 

 he swims nearer and nearer, and peers ahead with 

 the comic intensity peculiar to short-sightedness. 

 He turns sideways, and now the approach is still 

 slower and he accomplishes two things simultane- 

 ously — one eye is cocked forward, gazing steadily 

 at his victim, the other is twisted far back, never 

 leaving our person. It was fairly disconcerting and 

 rather disturbed my own concentration. He throt- 

 tled down his little push propellor to lowest gear, 

 and the slowness of his advance began to approach 

 the rapidity of the growth of his seaweed. Then he 

 went into reverse, with no change that I could de- 

 tect in fin ripples, and I looked and found that the 

 copepod had vanished. I was certain that it had not 

 swum away, the seahorse had made no snap or bite 

 in its direction, and I was completely confused. 



It was a long time before I had another chance 

 to be in at the death after a seahorse's stalk and this 

 time I knew rather than saw what happened. It was 

 in a small hand aquarium and against the glass 

 floated a score or more of fish eggs which had come 

 in with a surface haul. I was lucky enough to get a 

 flat-field eight-diameter hand lens in position with- 

 out causing the seahorse to shy. I watched without 

 a wink and I saw the mouth of Hippocampus open 

 wide, whereupon one egg after another simply was 

 no longer where it had been an instant before. A 



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