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Show Worried? Even a Fish Can't Get Rid of His Troubles NEW YORK. Somewhere the notion got around that 11 we could just simplify our lives and live more like animals, we'd get rid of our anxieties, fears, neuroses, frustrations. 8 The guy couldn't stand the limelight. lime-light. What about goldfish, those brazen bra-zen exhibitionists? Coates says they're more complex than people think. They're mean, he says. "They haunt each other," says Coates. "They don't really fight but just nip on each other's tails. They frequently have to be separated sepa-rated or they'll worry each other for days." And when a goldfish is alone? Tests show that he becomes more anxious and restless, swims more, uses up more energy, eats more, consumes less oxygen. Two goldfish gold-fish in a tank, Coates reports, will swim only half as far as a goldfish left alone. Others Sly, Too. In other precints of the animal kingdom, the shy and secretive weasel has to have a place to hide. Put him in an exposed cage and he'll go into convulsions and die. Giraffes go into a tizzy over strange smells at dinner. When the platypus was first brought to this country, he had a strange, unexplained fear of the color red. Women visitors in red coats used to be asked to remove same, but now the platypus is gradually getting accustomed to the color. Coates says the common herring, her-ring, sardine and anchovy are among the most nervous and sensitive. sen-sitive. He doesn't know of any aquarium that has been able to display them. They die the minute min-ute a net gets near them, even in water. Don't you believe it. ' Animals have their troubles, too. A little common jack, a fish about the size of a quarter, died recently at the aquarium in the Bronx zoo. First reports indicated indicat-ed a nervous collapse. He had been trailing a larger fish in a tank. Why? Maybe he was lonely. Nobody really knows, but Aquarium Director Christopher Christo-pher Coates says it is a fact that when the jack is separated from his parents he'll latch on to other fish. Fish Swims Away. The fish being tailed in this case didn't like it. He swam fast, darted in all directions, hiding first behind a sea shell, then behind be-hind a plant. The little jack began be-gan to shudder, swam erratically and, with his colors fading fast, finally collapsed on the sand. The end came minutes later. The zoo is full of case histories indicating animals have difficulty adjusting to each other and to changes in environment. One day two black-garbed women wom-en stood at the fence staring at two antelopes. How could they know antelopes became deathly afraid of being stared at? Since then the antelopes jump at the sight of anything in black. There is the case of the ruby jewel fish, the "two-inch blue-beard." blue-beard." Ordinarily ruby jewel fish vill behave in public or private, pri-vate, but this one seemed to be a schizophrenic. When he was mated in a tank away from the public view, he spawned nicely, raised a family. Move Tank Forward. Then they brought the tank up forward where people could see. This time he killed his mate. Back went the tank and he behaved again. This happened three times. |