42 DAHLAK 



of parrot-fish, demoiselle-fish, trigger-fish, butterfly-fish, 

 surgeon-fish, all in a heap suspended in half-water, ogling 

 from their coral dens, weaving up and down on the bottom, 

 rubbing up against each other. It was enough to make one 

 shout with wonder. 



A discussion we had had on the frequent phenomenon of 

 mimetism and natural camouflage came to my mind. The 

 tiger mimics the bamboo, the lion the yellow African bush, 

 the python the trees. They merge with their background, it 

 is said, so that their prey may less easily escape. On the other 

 hand, the prey has its own camouflage; the hare is fawn- 

 coloured in the stubble, the gazelle sandy-coloured in the 

 desert, the partridge white in the snow. Likewise in the 

 Mediterranean and in the other seas relatively poor in 

 fauna, the fish — soles, rays, octopuses, groupers, to quote a 

 few of the more classical examples — are mimetized to the 

 type of sea-bed they live on. 



In tropical seas, however, every kind of fish seems bent on 

 outdoing the other in brightness of colour and general 

 eccentricity of appearance. It would be impossible to imagine 

 a more consistent, obvious and flagrant anti-mimetism. 

 Exhibitionism is the keynote of the tropical sea-bed. How is 

 this to be explained ? 



The most probable explanation is that the coralline habitat 

 is so opulently benevolent to life that it can offer each 

 creature plentiful opportunities for escape or aggression, and 

 therefore survival. In the tropical marine habitat, innumer- 

 able as its creatures are, only an infinitesimal proportion of 

 them are sacrificed to the struggle for existence, while in our 

 seas, although not all the creatures born in them are blessed 

 with the possibility of mimetism, it is those that have this 

 advantage that have survived over millions of years. To sum 

 up, in tropical seas, for reasons of climate and therefore 



