146 



COASTAL FISH 



Mailed-cheek gurnard (Peristedion weberi) on the sea-bed, with snail-shells overgrown with 

 beaker-shaped single corals and the thread-like polyp Stephanoscyphus. 



which, like the salmons, are usually equipped with a small adipose fin. 

 All but one of the 137 were specimens of the 20-centimetre-long Chloro- 

 phlhalmus agassizi, with its colossal eyes a typical representative of the 

 fishes which inhabit depths where the light is dim, yet strong enough 

 for it to be worth while enlarging the eyes to the utmost. In the genus 

 Bathypterois, a near relative of Chlorophthalmus which inhabits even 

 greater depths, the eyes are on the contrary very small, and have probably 

 ceased to have practical importance. As compensation, these fishes have 

 evolved feelers in the form of free fin rays, often greatly prolonged. 

 Specimens of this last genus were caught off Kenya in the Gulf of Pa- 

 nama, at depths of 1,550 and 930 metres respectively. 



The last of the Iniomi was a specimen, about 60 centimetres long, of 

 the strange Ateleopus natalensis (Fig. p. 147). The whole of its elongated 

 body is translucent and almost gelatinous, and its skeleton is entirely car- 

 tilaginous. In an earlier trawl off Durban we had caught a smaller speci- 

 men of this rare fish, of which there are only a few well-preserved speci- 

 mens known. In the Natal area we also obtained 62 specimens of a small 

 black shark (Etmopterus lucijer), a relative of the species common in 

 the Skagerrak but rather smaller. A specimen of Etmopterus which we 

 later caught in the Gulf of Panama was only 15 centimetres long, and is 

 presumed to be the smallest shark ever found. 



