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creature that had been caught. The crew all remarked on the 

 fact that the Coelacanth still showed signs of life for several hours 

 afterwards. No deep-sea creature could have endured all that and 

 lived. So much, then, for any notion that this was a degenerate or 

 feeble fish. 



With all this clear evidence it was utterly impossible for me to 

 accept the view that this fish lived in the depths. It seemed un- 

 likely that it, or its ancestors like it, would ever have had to 

 Vetreat' from 'competition' with other fishes. I know of no past 

 or modern fishes that this Coelacanth, as a reef-haunting type, 

 need fear, very much the reverse. To most reef fishes the Coe- 

 lacanth would unquestionably be a terror, something like the 

 larger and rightly dreaded Rock Cods. In any conflict between 

 even the most vicious free-swimming types and the Coelacanth 

 in his own environment of the reefs, I would back the old Coe- 

 lacanth every time, and as a human diver among reefs I would 

 unquestionably not like to meet a Coelacanth down below. Look- 

 ing back, I find it as incredible as ever that the majority of 

 scientists interested in the matter apparently accepted the idea 

 that Coelacanths lived in the depths. 



My complete disbelief in this 'inaccessible depths' idea did not, 

 of course, solve the problem. The first question was whether this 

 particular fish really belonged to the area where it was caught. 

 Was it perhaps just very rare or had others been seen and not 

 reported? Many people are diffident about taking or even re- 

 porting to museums what looks queer to them, for fear that it 

 may be common and that they may be exposed as ignorant, and 

 many rarities are lost that way. It takes some event to shake this, 

 and every time a 'find' is reported in the press it brings a dimin- 

 ishing trail of other reports in its wake. When the first Coelacanth 

 was exhibited at East London, several people said they had seen 

 others. One man reported finding a fish just like it cast up on the 

 shore north of East London many years before. He had been 

 unable to do anything about it, as it was large and partly de- 

 composed. A trawlerman said that in Natal waters, many years 

 before, the net had brought up six large fishes that he felt sure 

 had been Coelacanths, but the skipper had ordered them to be 

 thrown overboard, as he doubted if anyone would eat such 

 strange creatures. There were other stories, all rather vague, and 



