sand-fish

To see hornbills on a bare sandbank is a solemn sight, but when they are dodging about in the hippo grass they sink ceremony, and roll and waddle, looking — my man said — for snakes and the little sand-fish, which are close in under the bank; and their killing way of dropping their jaws — I should say opening their bills — when they are alarmed is comic.

Travels in West Africa 2003

To see hornbills on a bare sandbank is a solemn sight, but when they are dodging about in the hippo grass they sink ceremony, and roll and waddle, looking -- my man said -- for snakes and the little sand-fish, which are close in under the bank; and their killing way of dropping their jaws -- I should say opening their bills -- when they are alarmed is comic.

Travels in West Africa Mary H. Kingsley 1881

He groped his way forward through the dark loft until he found the hay, when at once he burrowed into it like a sand-fish into the wet sand.

Sir Gibbie George MacDonald 1864