THE SECRETS OF THE SEA 329 



dazed when dumped out of the dredge into the 

 screen, and we may well presume that they were 

 dazed. Even in this subtropical sea the water 

 at a depth of a hundred to a hundred and fifty 

 fathoms is cold, and only a half twilight reigns 

 there during the hours of brightest sunshine. 

 These creatures, suddenly snatched from the sea 

 bottom, had been hauled up through six or eight 

 hundred feet of water and diminishing pressure and 

 thrown out into the hot air and dazzling sunlight. 

 Some of them feebly crawled about in the helpless 

 way that bees do when their smoked-out hive is 

 rifled of its honey. The more delicate creatures 

 were already dead when turned out of the dredge. 



No description can give a perfect idea of the 

 richness, variety, and strangeness of the animal 

 life brought up in this and many subsequent hauls 

 we made. We could not realize that such wealth 

 of deep water life existed within but a few miles 

 of Key West, and but a furlong below the deck 

 on which we stood. Accustomed to the shallower 

 water, fauna of the reefs and adjacent sea bottom 

 which we knew, it seemed we must be collecting 

 on some other planet where all life is different. 



Many of these forms are "old fashioned," 



