Introduction 1 1 



these will be selected lives, since there are so many 

 species of Deep-Sea Folk of which man, by reason of 

 his , limitations, can know practically nothing. But 

 I do hope to include all the fauna of the sea likely to 

 make interesting and popular studies — no, not studies. 

 I want to dissociate the idea of study from the book 

 altogether. If it smells of the lamp I shall be greatly 

 disappointed, and so will my readers. It should read 

 like a series of intimate biographies of tried and trusted 

 friends, whose lives, though passed on a different plane 

 from ours, are no less full of interest. 



A high and solid wall of division separates us from 

 the fuU fellowship with the lower animals which many 

 of us feel would add a new zest to life. Now and then 

 it gets low and thin, as in the case of the dog, the horse, 

 the elephant, the cat ; but even with these domestic 

 friends there always meets us the baffling barrier, 

 preventing the contact of our minds with what fills 

 the same function in the animal. And if this is so in 

 regard to those closely associated creatures, how much 

 more is it in regard to the wild ones, and how immeasur- 

 ably greater in the case of those interesting beings of 

 whom we only catch fleeting glimpses as it were. Here 

 imagination aided by experience is the only interpreter. 

 It may mistranslate, it may fail to understand many 

 things at all, but on the other hand it may — it has, 

 it often does — hit upon the exact truth as to the inner 

 lives of its subjects, at any rate, in far greater measure 

 than any statistical compilation can ever do. 



To conclude this brief introduction, let me sa}^ that 

 in some cases I feel it will be preferable to make the 

 sketch an apparent autobiography as it were — to let 

 the creature written about tell his own story in our 

 language, but from his point of view. This, I feel, 

 would hardly be appropriate to all the life-histories 



