382 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



bronze, and long, straight jaws which boded ill for 

 lesser fish which swam within striking distance. 

 Then there were spectral eels which seemed more 

 suitable adornments of a fairy tale — inmates per- 

 haps of deep pools beyond Mlmia, — pale, slender 

 eel wraiths, with inconceivably evanescent fins, 

 large staring eyes, and the most absm'd and use- 

 less jaws imaginable. With lamentable belittling, 

 some ichthyologist has named them Nemiclithys — 

 snipe eels — the value of this simile being exactly 

 one-half of one per cent. These remarkable jaws 

 are thread-like, and just in front of the head they 

 begin to diverge, each curving away from the other 

 and ending in a conspicuous round ball. If ten- 

 tacles were needed by this eel why in the name of 

 holy natural selection must the jaws be thus sac- 

 rificed! These eels were always quite dead when 

 I found them in the heart of the salpa mass, and 

 how they live and move and satisfy their appetites 

 in the icy blackness half a mile beneath our keel 

 I shall perhaps never know. 



Close together in one net were a scarlet and 

 wine-colored scorpion fish, all abristle with needle 

 spines on fins and head and gill-covers, together 

 with a lantern fish with glowing green eyes. Three 

 other fish which I found living here within thirty 

 leagues of New York City are typical of the depths 

 of all the seas in the world. One has been appro- 

 priately named Argyropelecus — the silvery hat- 

 chet — and when young these fish look like nothing- 

 else. They are deep and narrow, with eyes that 

 stare forever upward, the scales shining silver and 



