SHEIKH SAID, GREEN ISLAND 29 



habitat, are up against; at the same time nets are the only 

 device that can be called even fairly effective. 



After the nets had been down for six hours we found in 

 them small groupers, parrot fish, about thirty coralline fish 

 and a three-foot black-fin shark that came up wild with 

 rage, its head stuck through the first two strands of the net. 

 When we had pulled it into the boat we found it was a 

 female with four foetus, each the length of a finger, in the 

 belly. These went into the formalin pot. We often captured 

 marine animals on the point of giving birth ; we had in fact 

 hit the Red Sea in the season that corresponds to spring 

 with us, a season that sees, especially from the middle of 

 February to the middle or end of March, a large number of 

 fish approach the shore, nearly all of them making last- 

 minute love, giving birth, or laying eggs. On being captured, 

 more than a few rays, stingrays and sharks tossed their 

 hideous offspring into our hands and every day we found 

 crustaceous animals, molluscs and other inhabitants of the 

 deep full of eggs. We found, too, a mass of turtles' eggs and 

 in nests and on the rocks an enormous quantity of birds' eggs 

 and nestlings. Finally, in one of the most impressive scenes 

 the Red Sea offered us, we assisted at what can only be 

 called the parturition of the mantas. But one thing at a 

 time. I will only add here that this fact of breeding near the 

 coast probably explains the abundance of sharks found off 

 the mainland and islands of Eritrea during the winter and 

 in the early weeks of spring. 



That day, while the nets worked alone, our spearguns 

 were not idle. I opened the day's catch with a picturesque 

 ten-pound eagle-ray, a tremendously energetic one, which I 

 shot in six feet of water. Its long rat-like tail armed with two 

 poisonous saw-edged blades prevented me from disentangling 

 my line from the coral and it took some patience, shrewdness 



