NONSUCH 



and hatched, the young grow up and the eternal 

 cycle starts another turn. But we are only at the 

 beginning. Hippocampus is to prove that for sheer 

 interest the last fact may be first, that a psychologi- 

 cal reverse may make all physical shifts seem 

 trivial; that what would be abnormal in ourselves 

 has become usual and general in seahorses, and 

 (what in science is almost a truism) that to the most 

 dramatic phenomena we can ascribe no primary 

 reasons or ultimate values. 



We left the male seahorse doing his best to charm 

 his mate, curvetting about, rippling his mane, snap- 

 ping his jaws. The climax comes when she ap- 

 proaches and the two little creatures, rearing high, 

 meet in mid-water. By the rules of sex throughout 

 the ages at this moment the eggs should be fertilized, 

 but apparently the race of seahorses is bound by no 

 rules. At the moment of contact, one or several eggs 

 pass from the ovary of the female out into the water, 

 and by some instinctive bit of magic are slipped into 

 the orifice of a pouch which, like the pocket of a 

 kangaroo, is suspended in front of the male. What 

 we mistook for evidences of an unusually heavy 

 meal is something far otherwise. Again and again 

 the female swims up, and egg after egg is produced 

 and passed between them. So our generous male 

 was wooing not only for marriage but for the cus- 

 tody and care of prospective children. The last egg 

 is tucked away and without a cheerio or backward 

 glance, the bride turns and swims off, to the work 

 or play or meditation on life which occupy a lady 



232 



