I once knew a mother fish on the Maine coast who deliberately gave her life for her little fishes. They were caught in a pool when the tide went out. She couldn't get them to follow her to deep water, so she stayed and perished beside them. When I said to her as she flopped about in the shallow water, "Leave them and call for them next tide," she rolled her dying eyes at me and said, "I can't--they're my little fishes."