i87 



It will therefore be understood that to reap the greatest advan- 

 tage from this wonderful opportunity of an almost complete 

 Coelacanth, it would be desirable for each organ to be examined 

 and studied by an expert who already had in his brain a full 

 knowledge of that organ in most or all other creatures. This 

 therefore ruled out an examination only by myself, for, despite 

 all I know about fishes, it would take years before I could master all 

 the existing knowledge of each organ in turn; and besides that, 

 it would have been selfish and unjustifiable. My chief aim was 

 to extract the utmost scientific value from the Coelacanth. In 

 addition to this, now that there was a real hope that the true home 

 of the Coelacanths had been found, I wanted to get on with 

 what had become my greatest work — the investigation of the 

 fishes of the whole western Indian Ocean. 



It is a curious paradox that while the fishes of most seas have 

 been almost fully investigated, before my work there commenced, 

 those of East Africa had hardly been touched. Our series of 

 expeditions had indeed shown this to be one of the richest and 

 most interesting areas in the world, and our discoveries had 

 astonished ourselves as well as the world of science. 



I put my view about the study of the Coelacanth to the South 

 African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and 

 suggested that we should invite specialists to apply to be in- 

 cluded in a panel of workers to carry out the whole investigation. 

 This was approved by the Council. 



There was another aspect to be considered. This was the only 

 reasonably complete specimen of a Coelacanth. What if no others 

 were found ? Full study of the fish meant that it would have to be 

 cut up; dismembered. I wished to put that off until there was 

 no further hope of more specimens. In my own mind I decided 

 to wait for another eighteen months, which would cover a full 

 intermonsoon period, and if the Comores proved to be the real 

 home, there was every hope that others would turn up or be 

 found within that time. Another important point soon emerged, 

 which was that for the proper study of certain organs, 

 formalin-preserved material was useless, quite fresh tissues, 

 treated in various special ways, were necessary. So the full 

 study was, in any case, going to depend on finding more speci- 

 mens. 



