212 A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 



ing my head against the steel but not losing a second of 

 observation. A small school of luminous fish had just 

 passed, when, fortunately at a moment of suspension, came 

 a new and gorgeous creature. I yelled for continuance of 

 the stop, which was at 1900 feet, and began to absorb 

 what I saw; a fish almost round, with long, moderately 

 high, continuous, vertical fins; a big eye, medium mouth, 

 and small pectoral fins. The skin was decidedly brownish. 

 We swung around a few degrees to port, bringing the 

 fish into the dark blue penumbra of the beam, and then 

 I saw its real beauty. Along the sides of the body were 

 five unbelievably beautiful lines of light, one equatorial, 

 with two curved ones above and two below. Each line was 

 composed of a series of large, pale yellow lights, and every 

 one of these was surrounded by a semicircle of very small, 

 but intensely purple photophores. 



The fish turned slowly and, head on, showed a narrow 

 profile. If It were at the surface and without lights I 

 should, without question, have called it a butterflyfish 

 (Cbcetodon) or a surgeonfish {Acanthunis) . But this 

 glowing creature was assuredly neither, unless a distant 

 relation, adapted for life at three hundred fathoms. My 

 name for it is Bathysidus pentagrainfmis, the Five-lined 

 Constellationfish. In my memory it will live throughout 

 the rest of my life as one of the loveliest things I have 

 ever seen. 



Soon after I returned to the surface I reviewed my tele- 

 phoned notes, especially of the several new fish of which 



