626
October 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Who Told the Grunion? By R oland C ase R oss
PON t h e s a n d y beaches of Southern California t h e r e come in springtime hordes of little sil very fish, that ac
within a year—faces oblivion. The grunion runs are so small today none should be caught. F ish E ggs on L and How curious that a fish should leave its element and thrust its eggs into sand, above water. It seems these eggs will not hatch unless roughened and
tually swarm out of the water and, as some say, try to jump into your fish basket. To go
grunion hunting is an annual sport limited to the coast of Southern California, for it is here alone that the fish is at all well known. There comes to one’s mind remembrance of an ancient hoax known as “snipe hunting” when, for the first time, an invitation to go grunion hunting is re ceived. It sounds rather suspiciously like a joke at your own expense to be invited to hunt by night along a sea beach. And when assured that only a basket is required for equipment, then one’s shrewd Scotch will not allow definite assent to such a proposition. Yet, it is no joke. Grunions are caught by the sackful, basketful, boxful, on the nights on which they run, and that with no equipment but hands and feet. It seems the fish come to spawn in beach sand, and this they do in greater or lesser numbers twice a month in spring. There is this much certainty as to the time of each run: It occurs after the tides have reached their highest mark for that two weeks’ period and are daily falling back, so that during the days that tides are climbing higher and higher there is no use in hunting for grunion. But after the peak of that tide series has passed, they are liable to appear, either at once or within the next four or five days. There is a popular notion that the fish run only after the high tide in the full of the moon, but it is a fact that grunion spawn after the high tide of the dark of the moon. It is not the moon, but the conditions of the tides,} that the grunion respond to. “Hunting” grunion is really hunting, for one must keep the eye up and down the beach to locate a spawning school, and then dash into its midst, knee-deep in the surf, and grab them quickly. An individual laying eggs in the sands, requires only thirty seconds. At the next wave it is gone back to sea for good. Of course, others are coming in with the waves, but the hunt is always active, and the catch is to the spry. Seeing the beautiful flashing of thousands of these “smelt-like” fish, and knowing that similar thousands are crowding chosen beaches from Monterey to Mexico, it is hard to believe that “hand-picking” by curious crowds could reduce them. Yet they are so reduced today, the California Fish and Game Commission has asked that grunion be not taken. In fact, they are in great danger of extinction. First, the sandy beaches they favor are known, and almost every run is received by waiting crowds. The fish are heavy with eggs. The very individuals coming ashore are the ones on whom the new crop depends. Catching these breeding fish prevents increase, and that means ex tinction, sure and sudden. The remaining old fish die off naturally, and, with no new crop, the species suddenly—
rubbed by sand. The tiny creatures within the shell are ready to come out in ten days, but not until two weeks or so are up and the next rising tide reaches them, do they emerge. If kept in a dish, the eggs do not hatch, but if sand is added and swirled about with them, the shells are soon rubbed thin and the infant fish are hatched—all in a laboratory dish. On the beach the eggs are buried deeper than the mother can place them by the receding tide. When, in two weeks, the rising tides come in, the eggs are uncovered and the fry released from their shells. Moreover, they are no longer above water; they are at once in the sea, their natural home. Who told the grunion to do what it has no knowledge of ? It is the same question we must ask of every creature: “Who told you to do that which may be difficult and out of the ordinary for you?” No grunion knows its own offspring, ever sees it hatch or, technically speaking, knows what hatching is. Yet the fish do obediently that which perpetuates their kind—place their eggs out of the water, in sea-dampened sand, at such a level that the following tide will wash them back to sea, and at exactly such a time that no tide can touch them until they are ready for the sea. Consider the combination of conditions needed in suc cessfully raising the new crop of grunion. Mechanical habit could not by any chance hit upon this complicated order of procedure and nicety of adjustment. Habit ex plains nothing. Habit is the continuance of that which started under some impulse other than habit. There is intelligence in this balance,-gthis focusing of circum stances: Not fish intelligence, though it is to be noted, but Divine Intelligence. A fragment of such forethought and reasoning might be expressed as follows: To place the eggs high and dry is easy—take the high est tide. But perhaps no other tide will come that high in weeks. What then? Always place the eggs below the peak tide—surely the next tide will reach this lower level; yet not too low, lest a freak tide rush up and wash away the eggs. And should the spawn be placed exactly on a certain one of these days when the tides have passed their crest? No; perhaps the mother fish is not ready to lay, or is not permitted. What then?. No fear; another day will do—Lbut not too many; four or five at the most. Wherefore ? Because the grunion embryo requires ten days to develop into the baby fish. Ten days to grow, plus the four days waited after the peak tide, make fourteen. On the baby’s tenth day the high tide comes and rolls him out—at just the very day he was grown. High tides run fourteen days apart. Ten days for the fish to grow, gives four days leeway for the time of laying. Why should this embryo require ten days ? Or, if you will, why
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