Gobioidei, Discocephali, and Tasniosomi 473 



few spines are very long, each having a red tuft on the end. 

 When the animal is alive these spines stand up like a red 

 mane. 



The creature is harmless, weak in muscle as well as feeble 

 in mind. It lives in the deep seas, all over the world. After 

 great storms it sometimes comes ashore. Perhaps this is 

 because for some reason it has risen above its depth and so 

 lost control of itself. When a deep-water fish rises to the surface 

 the change of pressure greatly affects it. Reduction of pressure 

 bursts its blood-vessels, its swim-bladder swells, if it has one, 

 and turns its stomach inside out. If a deep-water fish gets 

 above its depth it is lost, just as surely as a surface fish is when 

 it gets sunk to the depth of half a mile. 



Sometimes, again, these deep-sea fishes rush to the shore 

 to escape from parasites, crustaceans that torture their soft 

 flesh, or sharks that would tear it. 



Numerous specimens have been found in the Pacific, and 

 to these several names have been given, but the species are 

 not at all clearly made out. The oldest name is that of Regalecus 

 russelli, for the naturalist Patrick Russell, who took a specimen 

 at Vizagapatam in 1788. I have seen two large examples of 

 Regalecus in the museum at Tokio, and several young ones 

 have recently been stranded on the Island of Santa Catalina 

 in southern California. A specimen twenty-two feet long lately 

 came ashore at Newport in Orange County, California. The 

 story of its capture is thus told by Mr. Horatio J. Forgy, of 

 Santa Ana, California: 



"On the 22d of February, 1901, a Mexican Indian reported 

 at Newport Beach that about one mile up the coast he had 

 landed a sea-serpent, and as proof showed four tentacles and 

 a strip of flesh about six feet long. A crowd went up to see 

 it, and they said it was about twenty feet long and like a fish 

 in some respects and like a snake in others. Mr. Remsberg 

 and I, on the following day, went up to see it, and in a short 

 time we gathered a crowd and with the assistance of Mr. Pea- 

 body prepared the fish and took the picture you have received. 



"It measured twenty-one feet and some inches in length, 

 and weighed about 500 or 600 pounds. 



"The Indian, when he reported his discovery, said it was 



