The Fishy Smiths

by Mike Bruton

  The Smiths’ dream of producing a book on the fishes of the Western Indian Ocean was eventually realised by Ichthyology Institute staff and their collaborators many years later. The first step was taken by Phil Heemstra, then Senior Curator of Marine Fishes, who contributed 16 family revisions to the FAO Species Identification Sheets for the Western Indian Ocean and Red Sea (Heemstra, 1984). In 2004, after a great deal of further field and laboratory work, Phil and his wife, Elaine, a Senior Artist in the Ichthyology Institute, published Coastal Fishes of Southern Africa, with all-new illustrations of over 400 fish species from coastal waters less than 200 metres deep (Heemstra & Heemstra, 2004).

  Then, in early 2018 SAIAB published Coastal Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean, edited by Phil Heemstra (now Curator Emeritus at SAIAB) and a ‘who’s who’ of international ichthyologists and illustrators who are all Honorary Research Associates of SAIAB: Elaine Heemstra, David A Ebert, Wouter Holleman and Jack Randall. It is the culmination of the work of more than 100 authors, photographers and illustrators from 16 countries over a period of more than 20 years, with the major contributors including Phil Heemstra, Dave Ebert, Dave Smith, Bruce Collette, Stuart Poss, Jack Randall, Gerry Allen, Helen Larsen, Danny Hensley, Kunio Amaoka, Eric Anderson and Keiichi Matsuura.

  This epochal book, which is being published in six volumes, includes accounts of over 3,600 fish species in 260 families and covers the shores of 16 countries in a region extending from the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea in the north to Cape Point in the south and as far east as Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. Interestingly, of the just over 4,000 new fish species described worldwide between 2003 and 2012 (i.e. about 400 per year), 140 were from the Western Indian Ocean and all are included in the new book (Holleman, pers. comm., 2017). As the WIO book only covers coastal fishes in relatively shallow water (less than 220 metres deep), many more treasures are likely to be found in deeper waters in the region in future.

  Wouter Holleman.

  This book is another multi-national triumph for the SAIAB, building on the long-term vision and legacy of JLB and Margaret Smith.

  1Smith started this new series after a disagreement with the Royal Society of South Africa and its then President, Dr SH Skaife, over its editorial policies. He suggested to Skaife that, ‘… when dealing with a scientist of his reputation, reviewers should be told to submit their report within two weeks and that they should be limited to rejecting the work or accepting it without any changes’. These conditions were unacceptable to the Royal Society as the peer review of publications is a cornerstone of modern science.

  CHAPTER 21

  Old Fourlegs

  The best fish book in the world

  FROM 1952 onwards JLB Smith was bombarded with requests from around the world to record the dramatic story of the discovery of the first two coelacanths.

  In a letter to Frank Reid (an old school friend from Cape Town), dated 31st January 1955, he wrote:

  ‘Instead of getting more staid and sober as I get older I just seem to get involved in more and more fantastic adventures and spend a good deal of my time writing and talking over the radio about them. I am constantly being besieged by overseas firms to write books about these obvious adventures and it is indeed very difficult to steer clear of all these sidelines. Add to this that I am the only really working Ichthyologist in an enormous area of the southern hemisphere and that we have enough material accumulated here, and the most wonderful material at that, to keep me busy for at least 20 years’.

  In 1953 he was swept off the rocks by a freak wave while fishing near Knysna and very nearly drowned. In a report on this incident in the Diocesan College Magazine (Anon, 1953) it states that ‘… his chief reaction in the water was intense anger that he should have endured so much in those remote seas [in East Africa] just to come and be drowned on his own doorstep’. When he arrived home and described his narrow escape, Margaret took him to task and told him that he had to write up the story of the coelacanth discovery as ‘nobody else could write it properly but himself and if he went on like that it might never be written’.

  Eventually he succumbed to the pressure and wrote the book, in longhand with a pencil and notebook, in three 10-day spells while floating on the Knysna Lagoon in his boat, accompanied by his dog, Marlin; these were apparently the only circumstances that allowed him to write undisturbed (Grocott’s Daily Mail, 20th January 1956).

  In a Foreword to the first edition, written in August 1955, Smith provides an insight into his psyche at the time:

  ‘This story has been dragged from my reluctant pen by the unflagging determination of my wife, consciously aided and abetted by numerous friends and unwittingly by publishers and literary agents from several countries. In succumbing, for the sake of historical record, it has been my aim to present this extraordinary event as accurately as possible. This has involved the mention of many different persons who played their part in the creation and course of this story. I have spared nobody, least of all myself, which is the extenuation I offer to those inclined to find my descriptive words harsh.

  ‘The general public is apt to regard people like leading scientists or cabinet ministers as almost superhuman and beyond or above ordinary human emotions. They are not, emphatically not, and to scale the heights a man must be prepared to wage an unending, bitter battle with those persistent fundamental weaknesses that constantly plague us all. One friend who kindly read the manuscript [HJ van Eck] asked me if I realised how it revealed myself. I do not mind. No man is a god’ (Smith, 1956).

  In his Acknowledgements, Smith thanks Margaret: ‘To my wife I am indebted for her constant support, for valuable if initially devastating criticism and for numerous illustrations’. It seems that, 18 years into their marriage, Margaret was beginning to assert herself!

  JLB Smith starts the book in grandiloquent style:

  ‘These are wonderful times, and it is thrilling to be living now, though it would thrill me even more to know that I could still be here a hundred or a thousand years hence, for this immediate future promises to be of intense interest, even excitement, certainly to the scientist. With a mind constantly reaching towards the potential marvels of the future, it has been my quite fantastic privilege to reveal to the world a living part of the utterly remote past, covering a span of time so great as to be almost beyond the grasp of the ordinary mind. In this process an obscure scientific name, Coelacanth (pronounced “seelakanth”), jumped into prominence and into a permanent place in the common speech of mankind.

  ‘Such things do not happen easily. The appearance of the Coelacanth [he always spelled it with a capital ‘C’] was like a giant tidal wave which washed me violently from my path, held me in its grip, carried me along, and set my feet on a quest that dominated some of the best years of my life. It caused me to lead an unusual life, of which many people came to acquire an attractive but distorted picture, seeing in me a scientist who dashed off on eventful expeditions to romantic tropical islands where wonderful fishes new to science were just waiting to jump into my net. They read of me as having almost casually telephoned a Prime Minister to ask for an aeroplane in which to make a sensational flight to fetch an incredible fish that attracted world-wide attention.’

  He then sets about dispelling these myths and describing the many obstacles that he had to overcome in identifying and describing the first coelacanth, and finding and securing the second one. It is one of the epic tales of modern science, and a quintessentially South African story – an often melodramatic account of heroism and starry-eyed obsession as Smith details, blow-by-blow, the catching of his fish. In the chronicles of South African science, it certainly rivals Christiaan Barnard’s epic saga of the first successful human heart transplant.

  Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth was published by the reputable London company, Longmans, Green & Co. (established in 1724), which had previously published George Cory’s six-volume Rise of South Africa. Old Fourlegs was originally due to appear in Apr
il 1956 but printing was delayed by a printer’s strike in London and the book eventually appeared in June that year. It took the world by storm. Old Fourlegs became an international bestseller and one of the most popular books of science non-fiction in the world at the time.

  This was not just a chronicle of discovery but also an analysis of the intimate thoughts of a practising scientist and of the acute frustrations that he experienced while trying to achieve his objective. It reveals a great deal about his character, resourcefulness and determination, and his passion, verging on terribilità, to find a second, intact coelacanth specimen. The book also gave many laypeople their first insight into the workings of a scientist’s mind, and introduced many people to the arcane disciplines of ichthyology and palaeontology.

  Old Fourlegs was eventually published in five English editions and nine foreign language editions (see below) and, in 1993, a braille edition was produced by the South African Library for the Blind. A particularly attractive edition published by Pan Books in 1958 features a full-colour painting of a very toothy coelacanth (incorrectly standing on its paired fins) with the endorsement ‘One of the great books of scientific adventure … stranger than fiction’.

  Editions of Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth

  1956 English Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth. Longmans, Green & Co, London, UK

  1956 English The Search Beneath the Sea. Henry Holt & Co, Inc, New York, USA

  1957 German Vergangenheit steigt aus dem Meer. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany

  1957 English Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth. Reader’s Union, London, UK

  1958 English Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth. Pan Books, London, UK

  1960 French À la Poursuite du Coelacanthe. Librairie Plon, Paris, France

  1962 Russian СТAРЦНA ЧЄТВЄРОНОГ [‘Starina Chetveronog’]. State Publisher of Geographical Literature, Moscow, Russia

  1964 Estonian Kuidas Avastati Latimeeria. Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus, Tallinn, Estonia

  1965 Afrikaans Ou Vierpoot: Die Verhaal van die Selakant. Tafelberg Uitgewers, Cape Town, South Africa (translated by JLB Smith)

  1969 Czech Cesta za čtyřnožec Latimérie. Dillia, Prague, Czech Republic

  1970 Slovak Cesta za štvornožcom. Bratislava, Slovakia

  1973 Dutch Vis op de Loop. BV Uitgeverij, Nijgh & Van Ditmar, ‘s Gravenhage, Netherlands

  1977 Latvian Sencis Četrkājis: Kā Tika Atklāts Celakants. Apvārsnis, Riga, Latvia

  1981 Japanese 生きた化石 : シーラカンス発見物語. Tuttle Mori, Tokyo, Japan

  1993 English Audio-book Old Fourlegs – The Story of the Coelacanth. South African Library for the Blind, Grahamstown, South Africa

  2012 English The Search Beneath the Sea – The Story of the Coelacanth. Literary Licensing, Whitefish, MS, USA

  2017 English The Annotated Old Fourlegs – The Updated Story of the Coelacanth. Struik Nature, Cape Town, South Africa1

  At that time, no book of non-fiction written by a South African scientist had appeared in so many different language editions, and few rival it even today. Furthermore, Old Fourlegs seems to have been the first work of English non-fiction by a South African writer to be translated into Russian, Estonian, Czech, Slovak, Latvian or Japanese, or to be printed in braille for visually-impaired users.

  Old Fourlegs was an extraordinary example of JLB Smith’s ability to share his enthusiasm for science with non-scientists. Jean Pote (pers. comm., 2014), his personal assistant for many years, has pointed out that Margaret Smith first heard of the Estonian edition when she received a letter dated 4th September 1968 from a 14-year-old schoolboy, Jaan Elken, from Tallinn in Estonia. In an accompanying letter he wrote, ‘By the way, the impression of the book was 30 000. The number of Estonians is about 900 000. As the whole impression is sold already, it comes out that every 30th Estonian has got your husband’s book!’ Similar estimates of the popularity of the book (and the optimism of its publishers) can be made for some other countries. In 1977 Latvia had about 2,485,000 inhabitants; their print run of 65,000 would provide one book for every 38 Latvians. In Russia, where the first print run was 100,000, the population in 1962 was about 122,600,000 and there was therefore one book for every 1,226 Russians!

  Old Fourlegs is, of course, far more than just a riveting account of the exploits of a driven scientist. At a time when science was not a strong component of the public consciousness – in South Africa or abroad – it brought science into the living rooms of many thousands of people. Then, through the numerous editions and translations of the book, radio broadcasts by the SABC and the BBC, and Smith’s popular articles in local and foreign magazines and newspapers, it raised the profile of South African science internationally and made Smith one of the best known scientists in Africa. This was at a time when South Africa, like many other countries, had learned from events of the Second World War that there was an urgent need to invest in science and technology. Research became a strategic priority and science a matter of national prestige. When the CSIR was formed in 1946 there was little communication between scientists and the general public; Smith was one of the first South African scientists to bridge that gap.

  The concept of the ‘public intellectual’, an academic who enthusiastically shares his/her research results with the general public, was, of course, pioneered at Rhodes University College in the early 20th century by George Cory and ably continued later by Doug Rivett and then JLB Smith. Whereas Cory discoursed on history and Rivett on chemistry, Smith talked fishes. And, like Cory before him, Smith used his technical knowledge of chemistry and physics to master the art of photography, using photographs taken with his faithful Rolleiflex ‘Old Standard’ twin-lens reflex camera (or lantern slides, in Cory’s case) to illustrate his public lectures.

  In 1965, Smith delivered a series of popular science talks (in Afrikaans) on SABC radio and said ‘Knowing the most wonderful thing in the world is useless if you do not share it with someone’. He also regarded his epic book, Sea Fishes, as his ‘first big experiment in simplifying science’ (Gon, 2002), writing in everyday language with easy-to-use keys that allowed laypeople to identify most fishes.

  Other pioneers of the public understanding of science in South Africa included Eugène Marais, Cecil von Bonde, Sydney Skaife2 and even the politician Jan Smuts. More recently, other South African natural scientists have written their memoirs, including Peter Jackson, Francis Thackeray, Pat Garratt, George Hughes, Brian Huntley and this author, as well as the game rangers/ecologists James Stevenson-Hamilton, Ian Player, Nick Steele, Ken Tinley, Tony Pooley and Paul Dutton.

  A post on the ‘Goodreads’ website dated 5th May 2011, by an American, Luke Farr, illustrates the lasting impact of Old Fourlegs:

  ‘As I hurriedly finished packing for my move from my hometown of Eugene, OR, to San Francisco, CA, I realised that I hadn’t packed any of my substantial collection of books. I was distraught … I stood before my book case and decided to select the two most important books I couldn’t bear to live without. The first one I pulled off the shelf was ‘Old Fourlegs’. While at times this piece of writing is dated with mild imperialism, and racism, the story it tells is an incredible story of scientific adventure that’s rarely heard these days. It’s the story of dedicating more than a decade of one man’s life towards discovering a second specimen of a fish, and proving to the world that what had been pulled up off the mouth of the Chaluma [sic] River in a trawler’s net was indeed a coelacanth.

  ‘The story is inspirational, it’s exciting, and for many young people at the time of its writing, as well as the period during which the events of the book took place, it was the inspiration they needed to go out and become scientists and have significant adventures of their own. With each reading of this book, I find my heart soaring at Smith’s moment of triumph, I find tears in my eyes as he gives a speech declaring the discovery of the second specimen over the radio to the people of South Africa. The book ha
s been so incredibly important to me growing up, and will continue to be throughout my life.’

  In June 1956 Smith presented a copy of Old Fourlegs to Dr Malan at the ‘Klub Here Sewentien’ in Cape Town. The Prime Minister browsed through it with interest, but when he read the statement about himself by Vernon Shearer on page 128, ‘He is a tough citizen, believe me, and can take more than most’, Malan laughed; Smith assured him that even more critical statements had been made about him elsewhere in the book (Grocott’s Daily Mail, 25th June 1956). Smith also sent a copy to the Postmaster-General in Pretoria to thank him for the assistance of the Post Office over the years (Grocott’s Daily Mail, 3rd July 1956). Has any scientist ever done that before?

  JLB benefited privately from the publication of Old Fourlegs as the book and its translations were very profitable. With the proceeds he bought part of a prime piece of real estate in South Africa, the Western Heads at Knysna, which included his favourite fishing spot, now known as ‘JLB’s Rock’, in the Narrows.

  JLB Smith presenting a copy of Old Fourlegs to the Prime Minister, Dr DF Malan, in June 1956.

  The story of the discovery of the coelacanth was also told by Shirley Bell, who first met the Smiths when she was editor of Field & Tide magazine, to which JLB contributed a monthly column in the 1950s and 1960s (Bell, pers. comm., 2017). She had previously been editor of SA Fishing and Ski-scene, for which Smith had also written regular articles, and later edited his two books, Our Fishes and High Tide, both published posthumously (Smith, 1968a, b). In 1969, with his encouragement, she published a book for young adults, Old Man Coelacanth. The book’s title comes from a rebuttal by JLB Smith of the following statement by EI White of the British Museum (Natural History): ‘Our living Coelacanth … was a wanderer from deeper parts of the sea to which its kind have retreated in the face of fierce competition with the more active modern types of fishes’. Smith’s response was: