lyo ANIMALS OF LAND AND SEA 



fied as one of these great squid in a dying condition, some- 

 what distorted by an active imagination. The head with the 

 frilled neck so commonly described is the tail of the squid 

 lifted above the water. The long slender snake-like sea-serpents 

 are the writhing arms of which the expanded ends look some- 

 thing like a head. Another common sea-serpent on the New 

 England coast is a composite picture of two basking sharks 

 which, swimming one behind the other, sometimes appear 

 as a single creature nearly a hundred feet in length. 



Other inhabitants of the twilight zone are strange fishes, 

 especially the ribbon-fishes which may reach a length of over 

 20 feet with a height of a foot or less and a thickness of only 

 an inch or two at the broadest part. Ribbon-fishes and their 

 close relatives the oar-fishes are found floating dead or washed 

 up on the beaches in all parts of the world, and seem not to 

 vary from one locality to another. Very young ones, queer 

 looking things, are sometimes taken in tow-nets. 



