Good-bye to the Fish 325 



specimens as there are to be found in museums present 

 all the ferocious characteristics of the West India 

 variety, but in none is this more marked than in a 

 species to which the appellation of Thyrsitops violaceus 

 has been given by the American ichthyologists, 

 Drs. Goode and Bean. The type-specimen, however, 

 was caught as far north as the Le Have Bank, off 

 the New England coast, at a depth of one hundred 

 and twenty-five fathoms, which goes to show that 

 the range of this fish is quite as extensive as that of 

 the mackerel, with which, indeed, it is said by some 

 naturalists to be allied. And with this brief allusion 

 to the deep-sea varieties of the Barracouta we will 

 bid the whole predatory family farewell. 



With this chapter I conclude my sketches of deep- 

 sea fish. Not, as it will be at once observed, because 

 of the exhaustion of the subject, but because of the 

 limitations of space. There are a number of other 

 fish inhabiting the deep sea with which, when they 

 have ventured near the surface or the shore, I have 

 had the pleasure of acquaintance. Chief among 

 them, in my estimation, is the magnificent Halibut 

 or gigantic flat-fish, which inhabits the North Atlantic 

 and has been caught at the immense depth of two 

 thousand five hundred feet. There are few more 

 satisfactory sensations at sea than that of finding 

 one of these splendid succulent fish on one's line, 

 and after a quarter of an hour's most serious toil 

 bringing the great buckler-like body, despite its 

 dogged pulling against you, to the surface and trans- 

 ferring it to the ship. 



These are the events from which the amateur 

 fisherman reckons. How far down in the ocean's 

 valleys the flat fishes really wander no one knows 

 ^vith any degree of certainty — that they have been 



