A MOTHERLY KNIGHT IN ARMOR 



would bend downward in an absurd resemblance to 

 a very blunt, second lower jaw. 



At four o'clock two more young seahorses slipped 

 out of the opening of the pouch corral. This was 

 distended and throbbing with life — the pressure 

 and struggles of little heads and bodies being 

 plainly discernible on the surface as intermittent 

 dimples and bulges. A few minutes later a loud cry 

 arose from my watcher and an instant after with 

 my hand lens, I was at the aquarium. 



The parent Hippocampus had taken a firm grip 

 with his tail around the branch of a seafern near 

 the bottom and was swaying back and forth with 

 head drawn in and the body and pouch pushed far 

 forward. As I watched, the body was drawn back, 

 and then, every muscle being brought into play, his 

 whole being again strained forward. The upper 

 third of the pouch which usually shows as a deep 

 fold down the middle was now distended to the full, 

 and in the center was revealed a small round orifice. 

 As the pouch reached its utmost distention the 

 opening enlarged slightly and with a convulsive 

 movement there was ejected a mass, a mist, a whole 

 herd of young. They were thrown out into the 

 world in the shape of a rounded ball, which, like a 

 smoke-ring or a bomb from a firework, held together 

 as it moved rapidly upward and obliquely forward 

 through the water. Only when it began to lose im- 

 petus ten or twelve inches away, did it spray out 

 into long streamers and scattered blobs of infant 

 Pegasi. From the moment of slackened paternal 



235 



