FOUR THOUSAND LIKE ONE 147 



lapsed into the blissfulness of ease, careless alike of man- 

 kind and of its enemies in the water. When within reach 

 the boat-hook was used as a spear more to startle the 

 indolent fish than in the vain hope of effecting its capture. 

 The boat-hook passed through what appeared to be the 

 middle of the creature with a splash, and four or five fish, 

 about 8 inches long, and of narrow girth, floated away, 

 stunned, killed by the shock. Then it was realised that 

 the apparently solid fish was really a compact mass of 

 little fish, moving along with common impulse and volition, 

 each fish having a sinuous, wriggling motion. So closely 

 were they packed that it was impossible without careful 

 scrutiny to discern individual members of the group, and 

 so intimate their association and so remarkable their mutual 

 sympathy, that they seemed to possess minds with but a 

 single thought, hearts that beat as one. Here were not 

 forty, not four hundred, but more likely four thousand 

 living, moving, and having their being as a single indi- 

 vidual. Dispersed for an instant as the boat-hook or 

 paddle was driven through it, the mass coalesced auto- 

 matically and instantly as if controlled by mechanical 

 force, or composed of some resilient substance, and swayed 

 again on its course, while the dead and stunned drifted 

 away. 



Examining the specimens procured, it was found that they 

 resembled lampreys in shape, olive green in colour, with pale 

 lemon-coloured streaks and marks. Each of the gill cases 

 terminated in a two-edged spur, transparent as glass, and 

 keen as only Nature knows how to make her weapons of 

 defence. 



Presently in obedience to some instinct the shoal left 

 the shallow water inshore, and we watched it glide among 

 the brown waving seaweed to the line of dull red, which 

 indicated the outer edge of the coral reef and saw it no 

 more. This, my piscatorial pastor and master says, 

 was no doubt a community of striped cat-fish {Plotosus 

 anguillaris). 



