THE SCHOOLS OF LITTLE ARROWS 



then another goes over the hurdle, from this side 

 or that, sometimes balking at the start and swim- 

 ming away, more often flinching sideways, a leap 

 clear of the surface, but very unlike the high, for- 

 ward course when fleeing for life from an impi of 

 mackerel. This may accomplish some real purpose, 

 either practice or achievement, to which we have no 

 clue, but as far as appearances go, it is sheer exu- 

 berance, relaxation, a momentary' forgetting of 

 the myriad dangers which menace even these fa- 

 vored fishes of the king from above, below and 

 around, day and night, from birth to death. 



Two memories I like, now and then, to take 

 down from my Atherina archives, relive, and re- 

 place in the full knowledge that no experience more 

 dramatic or dangerous or spectacular, in past life 

 or to come, can ever obliterate them. 



A day in early September, clear and warm, the 

 air transparent and so quiet that the sea was like 

 watered silk. On land the only life was a pair of 

 bluebirds warbling so low to themselves that the 

 sound barely detached itself from the silence. On 

 the beach beneath a trio of turnstones butted against 

 the piled windrows of sargassum, and a kingfisher 

 looped from one headland to another. I sat on a 

 high cliff and watched foiir separate schools of 

 Silversides leap time after time into the air. Usually 

 the hosts of pursuers simply boiled in their wake, 

 but now and then a mackerel hurled himself a full 

 yard after them, turning a somersault as if in play 

 as much as in hunger. 



249 



