T^ONSUCH 



I returned frequently to the tank and watched him 

 time after time make the circuit of the glass and 

 back to his resting frond. He was restless and gave 

 no time to feeding. His eyes kept turning, twisting, 

 sometimes in rhythm or often independently as if 

 they belonged to a span of horses. So I left him at 

 midnight, slowly gliding on his rounds. 



The following day, at ten o'clock, I saw the first 

 seacolt break from the paternal stable and rush 

 across the aquarium. I chivied it into a narrow glass 

 and watched it carefully for a long time. Its activity 

 was prodigious and its position was ancestral. Never 

 for more than a moment did it rear into a true sea- 

 horse posture, but was usually outstretched with 

 tail trailing and head bent at only a few degrees, 

 reminiscent of some pipefishlike forefather. Its 

 heart beat vigorously and the great dorsal fin and 

 the lower pectorals fanned the water and sent it 

 swiftly ahead. The tail was the most amazing por- 

 tion of its anatomy — it coiled and uncoiled, 

 stretched and drew back, but especially it lashed 

 from side to side. More than any other movement 

 of fin or head or body, this lateral stroke was charac- 

 teristic. When it wished to attain ultimate speed, it 

 was by lateral wriggling, and when it began to re- 

 sent and be enraged at the constant bumping of its 

 nose against the glass it twisted its tail into a veri- 

 table corkscrew, then undid itself and with the 

 greatest ease astonishingly entwined the tip around 

 its own snout, neck and fin. Now and then it opened 

 its tiny tube mouth, and the short, broad hyoid bone 



234 



