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when it was taken by currents or pulled by gravity. It was able to choose 

 its own path and to protect itself. 



This can only be guesswork. We know hardly anything of this phase 

 of life, but development must have proceeded at a great rate, for quite 

 suddenly there appeared on earth clumsy, monstrous fishes with large 

 armoured heads. It is generally assumed that this armour was for 

 ordinary protection. This is hard to believe. With only the head en- 

 cased a creature of this type would be likely to be vulnerable to attack 

 and destruction, as indeed their ultimate disappearance proved. It is 

 more likely that the heavy casing of the head was to protect the delicate 

 brain from increasing osmotic action as the sea became more salty. 



Hollow Spines 



Be that as it may, among other fishes of the very early past — some 

 300 to 350 million years ago — appeared the Coelacanths. These were 

 easy of recognition because of numerous features, among them the 

 hollow spines, resembling tubes, from which they got their name. 

 While the pattern of life showed a constant series of changing forms 

 that came and passed, the sturdy Coelacanths went steadily on. Many 

 left easily recognizable fossil remains over about 300 million years. 

 There were not many species, but they showed relatively little funda- 

 mental change over that vast period. 



All fossil records ceased about 60 million years ago, and the Coela- 

 canth was said to have become extinct; but in 1938 a living Coelacanth 

 was caught off East London, Cape Province. For 14 years since then I 

 have looked for another. I realized that the Coelacanth, if another 

 existed, must be sought in water of moderate depth, with uneven rocky 

 bottom, probably with swift currents and wind-lashed seas. There it 

 would be difficult to catch by any means. With its thick, heavy scales 

 and its ability to hide, it would be safe from almost every kind of 

 attack. 



My deductions told me that the best place to concentrate our 

 search would be the area about Madagascar, and my collaborators and 

 I have for years flooded the whole East African region with a leaflet 

 in English, French, and Portuguese, giving a picture of a Coelacanth 

 and oflFering j£ioo reward for each of the first two found. 



Now off the north-western tip of Madagascar, from the islands of 

 Anjouan, in the Comoro group, another Coelacanth has been caught — 

 a second species, new to science, which I have named Malania anjouanae. 

 It is a great relief that the 1938 Coelacanth was not a last hoary sur- 

 vivor. The ancient line still goes on. On my brief visit to the Comoro 

 Islands last Monday to collect the newly caught fish, I learnt that the 



