4 



dull. How can I become an ichthyologist ?' So I tell them. First 

 you must get a University Master's degree in Biology, better still 

 a Doctorate, which means a minimum of five years of University 

 life. Then for ten years at least you must be prepared to do 

 laborious donkey-work, almost certainly poorly paid, as an 

 assistant to some expert in that line, much of it dull, monotonous 

 routine, like counting scales on hundreds and thousands of small 

 fish, probably more deadly than counting pennies in a bank, and 

 those at least don't smell. Even then you may not be good enough 

 to get anywhere, and there are few positions where you will be 

 paid a good salary as an ichthyologist. Most turn sadly away, 

 but the few takers have made good ! 



This book is to tell the almost incredible story of the Coelacanth, 

 but as this is inextricably bound up with my own personality, it 

 would be as well to tell you something of how that was shaped. 



My life has throughout been a series of contrasts and changes, 

 many due to the peculiar circumstances of South Africa. Of 

 English parents, I was born in 1897 at the inland Karoo town of 

 Graaff Reinet. In the midst of the stress and bitterness of the 

 Boer War my early years were spent in an atmosphere of deifica- 

 tion of all that was British, and hatred and scorn of the 'Boers', and 

 indeed of anything South African as distinct from British, includ- 

 ing the country itself. 



It has always been my uncomfortable instinct not to accept 

 uncritically the opinions of others, and while this has ultimately 

 been an asset in my scientific career, it did not always create the 

 most cordial relations at home or at school. 



My early education was at several small Karoo village mixed 

 schools, and later at the abruptly different atmosphere of 'Bishops', 

 modelled on an English Public School. The next violent contrast 

 was the Victoria College at Stellenbosch, predominantly Afrikaans 

 and reputedly steeped in Nationalism and Politics, but I encoun- 

 tered a peaceful tolerance towards my firm political views. There 

 I gave my heart to Chemistry. 



When the Great War came, in company with thousands of 

 others of like age, on the 7th August 19 14, I was called up from 

 school and put into khaki and barracks at Wynberg, then into the 

 tender care of a Regular British regiment for training. The en- 

 forced close company of this strange unnatural substratum of 



