190 



The family had repeatedly heard of them from the natives, and 

 one man had actually seen such a creature in flight close by at 

 night. I did not and do not dispute at least the possibility that 

 some such creature may still exist. A man of foreign birth reported 

 having seen a dragon at a place on our own south coast. It had 

 left clear tracks on the ground before it vanished in dense bush, 

 and though he had told the police, nobody had succeeded in 

 tracking it. I suggested a Leguaan (a big lizard of South Africa). 

 People from many countries wrote to tell of Coelacanths they had 

 seen there. An American soldier stated that they were common in 

 the fish-markets of Korea. A woman in Bermuda was positive 

 one had been offered to her by a fisherman there. One somewhat 

 politically minded person wrote to reprove me for naming the 

 fish after Dr. Malan, and said that it would have been much more 

 fitting to have honoured in that way the native who had caught it. 

 Several natives did the same. An American who wrote about the 

 Coelacanth, concluded by sympathising with me for having to 

 live in such a dreadful country as South Africa, a visiting native 

 professor had told them all about it. I concluded my reply by 

 saying that many years ago I had heard a talk by a visiting Amer- 

 ican about life in his country which had left us all very thankful that 

 we lived in South Africa, and that what they had been told was 

 probably as accurate as the story we had heard. An American 

 ichthyologist wrote : 'Now I can die happy for I have lived to see 

 the great American public excited about fish.* 



The broadcast from Durban about the whole matter had 

 apparently been greatly appreciated, though friends laughingly 

 reproved me for having made many others weep from my emotion. 

 My young son certainly disapproved of that part. Anonymous 

 letters are normally despised, but we received some that do not 

 fall in that category, and one is reproduced on p. 254, at the end 

 of that broadcast. 



The whole affair had some peculiar consequences. All over the 

 world it led to greatly increased sales of books about fishes; in 

 Britain especially of one by a late member of the staff of the 

 British Museum. I had sent a scale of the first Coelacanth to an 

 American museum, and this had been kept for safety in the strong- 

 room. Now it was brought out for exhibition, and thousands of 

 people filed past to see it. A prominent member of the British 



