THE SEA HORS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 27

THE SEA HORS

the blue Italian sky. and the sand> beach of the Lido, mar Venice, warm and glowing. Betty Gra>\ a little English girl, was paddling at Uu edge of the sea. now and then stooping to pick up a vtrt icularly pretty shell to add to her ollevtion. Presently .> ragg d old man came down the beach, curving a large b.i>ket on his arm. When he came n*. Hetty he begged her to buy some his wares, and at once begun to sho» her the many coloured necklaces ami other pretty things made of shells lv ! carried. There was nothing very un j usual among them, Betty thought, arc I then suddenly she gave a little cry {excitement. There, on top of the basket, was li 1 skeleton of a most ridiculous-lookii-I little fish, not more than three inch* - long. The head bore a strange resent bla nee to that of the knight in a of chess-men: the little body was q»u. • plump, and tapered oil into a long. thin. I bonv tail, which was curled up at th*- | end. . "Quanto” (How much?* Betty asked I the old man. pointing to the absurd j little creature. J The old man demanded .« few cop i pers, and Hetty them from i her pocket, giving them joyfully in exI change for this strange little object, i When aim showed her trouunwe J Daddy, he told her that it was a "so.. I horse,** or. t-> give it its Greek ns—j Hippocampus. Betty decided at on* • to call it Hippo for short, and that l night she put it carefully away in an empty chocolate box and laid it b* ’ neath her pillow. j In the middle of the night Hetty si.* denly wakened up. and when she heard a little twittering sound coming from the box she lifted out the tiny sea horse, and whispered softly: • Whai the matter. Hippo?” “’Matter?” asked the sea-horse, n. J dignantly. ••How would you like to b j shut up in a lx»x all night? Not mun I expect. Why. it was just like tlatime when I was fastened up ins.dmy dad’s pocket and couldn’t get at the sea.” | "Fastened up inside your daddy ’ pocket?” echoed Betty. "Of course.” said the little fish, pm - tishly. "When 1 was a new little with all my brothers and sisters, dad j gathered all of us up and hid us m .’his pocket until we wore ready ’ ! hatch out in the sunshine. Then | when we began to wriggle about, h - i cause we had turned into baby se« - horses, he let us all swim out into t; sea. Oh, that was fun! Hut we didn t swim far; we found pieces of seaweed near by. round which we could curl our tails and stay to rest. Da»i I looked after us to see that we cam* to no harm, and whenever we yrer. ; afraid we used to scuttle back Quick! > : into the pocket for safety—just at first. ; you know.” "And where’s your caddy now asked Betty. “I’m sorry to say 1 don’t know.” replied Hippo, with a sigh. "One day i curled my tail round a piece of seaweed and the tide washed me tar i away, never to see my relatives again. : It couldn’t be helped, of course, and : none of us sea-horses can swim far : at all, so X could never find my old ! home again. We have to swim by j means of this lin in the middle of our backs, and we move it so quickly tlui it looks nrlier like an electric fan when it is in motion: we have no tail lin. But our tails are most useful to fasten round floating or swimming objects, and then we can sit strainup with our heads in tie* air wli .• our steeds are moving along in the water under us. Hiding on those long, thin pipe-fishes, for instance, is grea : fun. and if you go to the London Z<«- { you can see some of us doing that *l- - most any day.” “Well, I’ll certainly visit the Aquarium to see that,” said Betty. Then a sudden thought struck her. "What do you feed on?” she asked. "Tiny little sea creatures usually." answered Hippo; "but we are also ver fond of eating the larvae of gnats an** mosquitoes—so you should be grateful to us for that. We come close t«. i the creature we mean to eat pwr i closely at it, then, hey presto! it vani ishes from sight for ever." | "Oh, dear,” shivered Betty, "I’m g -oi I’m not a tiny sea-creature. If 1 wer- ! though. I expect I’d be rather afraid : of your large eyes, anyhow.” "I’ll tell yoti something curious about them,” whispered Hippo mysterious!*. 'I can keep one of them quite still . while I move the other. Just watch me for a minute." Betty watched Hippo’s eye moving 1 round. and then suddenly felt she j could hear it no longer. With a little shriek of horror she buried her head beneath the bedclothes She was still below the clothes when ) mother wakened her in the morning. And how she and mother laughed when she told her the reason why slie had I felt she must hide her eyes in th:> way! Hetty found that she hud dropped her deai- little Hippocampus on tb*floor beside her bed, but she carefully replaced him in his pretty box read-, to pack and take back to Londoh as a i special treasure. the Aquarium and watched them rising in dignified st.ite on he back- •»( the long pipe- fisiie-. HOWLERS “A line in geometry is what you draw and don’t see.” "Transparent means something you can see through—for instance, a key. hole.” "Ambiguity means telling the truti: when you don’t want to.” The chief duties of an M.P. are u go to sleep when another man i speaking, and force his party inn power." I Teacher: "Now, Patsy, would it b. proper to say ‘You can't learn rr.‘- n< ! thins • Patsy: Ye.-'m ” Teacher j "Why**” Patsy: " 'Cause can'*.' (Mother: 1 don’t think, darling. • h-» ybu should play cards on Sund*\ Harold: "Hut, mummy, we aren't pNv | ing properly! we are only cheating