29 



I was bound to complete my work within a specific period, and an 

 absence at that time would almost certainly have prevented ful- 

 filment of that obligation, for a reason I could scarcely present 

 as justifiable. The other alternative was that the animal should 

 come to me, but in my chaotic state of mind at that particular 

 time, its great size, 4J feet long, had not registered, nor the date 

 of its catching or indeed anything but its possible identity. Was 

 this the fulfilment of the peculiar premonition I had always had ? 



One is hesitant about saying such things, but I have some pecu- 

 liar sense outside the ordinary, sometimes spoken of as 'sixth 

 sense', which warns me of impending events, usually danger or 

 trouble, sometimes very long in advance. Again and again I have 

 realised later that this subtle anticipation has caused me to act 

 so as to avoid serious inconvenience and disaster, and those who 

 live with me respect these 'hunches' of mine, even when they 

 involve what seem utterly irrational prohibitions, and even though 

 the others point out that when we have obeyed my apparently 

 ridiculous directions, we often have no means of knowing that 

 anything would have happened had we not done so. I don't 

 always know either, but bitter experience inclines me at least to 

 obey them. One of my most constant and peculiar obsessions had 

 always been a conviction that I was destined to discover some 

 quite outrageous creature, I had no idea what, but had come to 

 suspect it might be a true sea-serpent or something like that. 

 This was so firmly fixed in my mind that just as my peculiar set 

 of circumstances and qualifications had set the stage ready for 

 the appearance of the Coelacanth, so in one sense had this pre- 

 monition prepared me to deal with such a fantastic possibility 

 as had now arisen, and, indeed, even while my common sense 

 rejected it, to seek for it in an obviously impressionistic sketch 

 by someone not an ichthyologist. 



My wife was speaking again — we had been married only nine 

 months and, as I am older by a good many years, she was con- 

 stantly finding unexpected pockets from the past, and here was 

 one. T didn't know you had worked on fossil fishes,' she said; 

 so I briefly told about my incursions into that field. 'What makes 

 you think this may be one of them ?' she asked. 'Well, mainly the 

 tail. As far as I know there is no living fish with a tail like that. 

 It is characteristic chiefly of the earlier members of a group known 



