A True Seahorse Posture

If it is true that the eggs require four weeks to develop, then a fathom or two down, among the eel-grass and seaweeds of Castle Harbour, a certain seahorse was courted, married and deserted on a Saturday night, the sixth of June. On the second of July we seined him off our bathing beach. As he glided gracefully about the aquarium I saw he was a horse of unusual beauty. He was fullgrown-one hundred millimetres from snout to tail-or less impressively, four inches. His color was a brilliant seagreen, darkened on the back, but the cheeks, chest and pouch were aglow with this beautiful shade; his eyes were blazing gold, cut four square by lines of alabaster; his neck was arched and proud as that of a thoroughbred Arab.

The pectoral fins were long and widespread like wings, and the graceful body gleamed with a host of white dots, streaming out into constellations or concentrated into galaxies-good reasons all for calling him Pegasus. His pouch was unusually distended; now and then, even when he was quietly resting, the emerald surface was troubled, quivered, and was quiet again. I returned frequently to the tank and watched him time after time make the circuit of the glass and back to his resting frond. He was restless and gave no time to feeding. His eyes kept turning, twisting, sometimes in rhythm or often independently as if they belonged to a span of horses. So I left him at midnight, slowly gliding on his rounds.

The following day, at ten o'clock, I saw the first sea-colt break from the paternal stable and rush across the aquarium. I chivied it into a narrow glass and watched it carefully for a long time. Its activity was prodigious and its position was ancestral. Never for more than a moment did it rear into a true seahorse posture, but was usually outstretched with tail trailing and head bent at only a few degrees, reminiscent of some pipefish-like forefather. Its heart beat vigorously and the great dorsal fin and the lower pectorals fanned the water and sent it swiftly ahead. The tail was the most amazing portion of its anatomy-it coiled and uncoiled, stretched and drew back, but especially it lashed from side to side.

More than any other movement of fin or head or body, this lateral stroke was characteristic. When it wished to attain ultimate speed, it was by lateral wriggling, and when it began to resent and be enraged at the constant bumping of its nose against the glass it twisted its tail into a veritable corkscrew, then undid itself and with the greatest ease astonishingly entwined the tip around its own snout, neck and fin.