NONSUCH 



flock. Since then I have had long talks with William 

 Morton Wheeler about the same idea in regard to 

 the actions of an army or a nest of ants. Now that 

 I am attempting to learn something about the ways 

 of fishes I have many times watched their schooling 

 habits. 



A few feet away from me was a concentrated 

 school of small fish. When they were drawn out 

 into a long ribbon I counted fifty, and a conserva- 

 tive estimate of the whole was fourteen hundred — 

 and this was an extremely small school, as schools 

 of Little Arrows go. Slowly the school swung first 

 in one, and then in the opposite direction, it changed 

 from a circle to a dumb-bell, to beads on a string, to 

 a crescent, and now and then I halved it momen- 

 tarily, when it rejoined and became some unnamed 

 figure. It had length, breadth, and depth, intentions, 

 achievement, attempt, refusal, impetus — but one 

 never thought of individual units. As I watched, it 

 became more and more a sentient individual, with 

 particular desires and activities ; in the little harbor 

 beneath me were snappers, and squirrelfish, cowfish 

 and bream and — it. It kept half-way from the 

 bottom, and its shadow on the bottom was the veri- 

 similitude of a slow creeping worm, which flowed 

 over pebbles, reached fingers out sideways, drew 

 back and then slipped out of sight, as the sun went 

 under a cloud. 



I could do strange things with this Atherina or- 

 ganism — like boring three holes at once through 

 it. I waited until it became a broad oval and then 



240 



