250 



did turn up anywhere, it would not be lost for lack of information. 



This year my wife and I went on a scientific expedition to Zanzibar, 

 Pemba, and Kenya to investigate the fishes. Here, as in all our East 

 African work, I never went out to any reef to bomb without hoping that 

 I might one day see a Coelacanth's belly breaking the foam after a 

 blast. But none came. At Zanzibar we met Captain E. E. Hunt, a man 

 who owns and runs a fine schooner trading between Zanzibar and the 

 Comoro Islands. Now I can't tell you why, but for the past three 

 years those remote and little-known islands have been nagging at my 

 brain. I felt I had to go there, and often said so to my wife. This Eric 

 Hunt is no fool, and when he saw the Coelacanth leaflet he was more 

 than normally interested. When we returned from Kenya the ship 

 touched at Zanzibar, and Eric Hunt sought out my wife and got from 

 her a good deal of extra information about the Coelacanth *so that if I 

 ever come across one I shall be able to be certain'. I have a great respect 

 for my wife's judgment, even when she slashes my work I think good. 

 When she told me about her talk with Hunt she said, 'That man is all 

 there, I think we can rely on his judgment if ever he gets a Coelacanth. 

 He is sound.* As he said good-bye to her at the steps of the landing-stage 

 of Zanzibar on the 13th December 1952, he said, 'Okay, Mrs. Smith, 

 when I find a Coelacanth I'll send you a cable.' One need hardly 

 guess that both of them smiled with amusement, and yet ten days 

 later he sent just that very cable. 



My wife and I have been baking and stewing in tropical heat for 

 five long months, and we wanted to get home. We have a vast collec- 

 tion of fish, making an endless vista of work ahead. Our ship had reached 

 Durban. A pressman had got me in a corner when an officer came with 

 an urgent telegram, one of many at that time. . . . 



I finished what I was saying and then opened the telegram. My heart 

 turned right round or it felt like that, for two words leapt to my eyes — 

 'Coelacanth' and 'Hunt'. My wife was looking at me as I got up dizzy 

 from reaction and trying to read the telegram of dancing letters. 

 I said 'Coelacanth', and she jumped to her feet. The message came from 

 one of the Comoro Islands and from Hunt — a 5-foot Coelacanth. 

 Then my brain got to work. The Comores are remote and primitive — 

 no refrigeration, did Hunt have formalin ? — my wife said he should have 

 some. We looked at one another with the same fear. The cable said 

 caught on the 20th ; this was the 24th — no cold store — little formalin, 

 and the December heat of the Comores. For a while I went almost 

 insane. Was the same thing to happen again ? I sent an urgent cable to 

 Eric Hunt asking for a statement of the condition of the specimen — 

 it came 36 hours later — injected 5 litres formalin. 



Christmas holidays — how I hate them ! People eat too much and 



