THE SCHOOLS OF LITTLE ARROWS 



spending to our ear, is also at hair-trigger, ready to 

 help. I strike iron against iron out of their sight on 

 the deck, and the school swerves half a foot. Two 

 boats bump gently together on the other side, and 

 the school swings toward me with a single, flinching 

 impulse. 



Scattered through the hosts of Atherina are sev- 

 eral score of a quite unrelated species — a round- 

 bodied herringlet with a silver stripe, but with the 

 terrible name of Jenkinsia, No matter how wonder- 

 ful a professor of physiology Dr. Oliver Peebles 

 Jenkins and how splendid a man — I resent the 

 name of anyone of my race being given to the genus 

 of a brave, individual, end-product member of the 

 wild fauna of our globe. Having rid myself of this 

 spot of " quarrelsome interest," I say hurrah for 

 Jenkins, and return to the scores of his namesakes 

 swimming before me. 



On the surface, isolated, for reasons known only 

 to themselves, was a school of thirteen of these her- 

 ringlets. They represented the essence of fear — 

 never quiet for a moment, turning, twisting, back, 

 forth and around, as they saw, heard or imagined 

 they detected danger. Little by Httle I increased 

 this by a judicial rain of pebbles, until a handful 

 sent them diving headlong into the school of 

 Atherinas. They vanished, as a shadow merges with 

 shade. Where they entered the surrounding mem- 

 bers of the school fluttered for a moment and then 

 quieted, in tune with the rest. Then from near the 

 front end (for at that moment ' it ' had a front end) 



247 



