195 

 In the case of the Coelacanth it was clear that problems like 

 these could be solved only with more, probably only with many, 

 specimens. There was also the strong possibility of mutilation or 

 of deformity, or both, to account for these differences, but one 

 needs to be cautious in seeking to explain things that way. We had 

 one striking lesson. 



When working in the northern part of Mozambique, in a 

 canoe-catch one day I saw one of the peculiar Unicorn-fishes, a 

 type of fish that has a long horn on its head, and this one even more 

 peculiar because it had a hump on its back as well. You often see 

 humped-back fish, a result of being either deformed or mutilated, 

 usually when young. I looked at this one closely and decided it 

 was probably a deformed specimen of the large Unicorn-fish that 

 is quite common up there; but at the lighthouse that night my 

 wife remarked that she had seen a deformed ^Naso' that morning, 

 it had a humped back. That made me sit up, and I questioned her. 

 Next day I watched for that 'deformed' fish, and within a week 

 we had got a dozen ; and what is more, while all had humps some 

 had no horns. It did not take long to discover that this was no 

 'deformed' fish at all, but a true species, and I found that while 

 the males had horns the females had not. I described that fish in 

 scientific literature and named it ^Naso rigoletto\ Following the 

 publication, from scientists over a great part of the world came a 

 series of letters, many quite amusing, some chagrined, to say that 

 they had had that species in their collections many, many years, 

 and had just dismissed it as an abnormal or deformed fish. So I 

 was wary about 'deformed' fish. It is risky to decide anything like 

 that on one specimen, and in the case of the Coelacanth it all 

 pointed clearly to the need for more, for many more, specimens. 



I wanted to clear up all these points ; it was something I wanted 

 to see settled before I died, and I was prepared to go on myself. 

 The Governor had given a most cordial invitation to return to 

 the Comores, where it was clear that no scientific work like mine 

 was in progress ; nor had it probably ever been done at all. Coela- 

 canths were apparently caught near the end of the year; the best 

 time, with little wind, for any work on fishes. We could do our 

 normal work and hunt Coelacanths as well, as we had been doing 

 for years. We must get an expedition going. 



Even when I composed that early article (p. 243) for The Times, 



