348 NATURE AND MAN. 



sea fish are of a dull black colour, and some white as if bleached, 

 deep-sea crustaceans, echinoderms, and zoophytes usually exhibit 

 more colour than the corresponding forms that inhabit shallow 

 water. Thus tne deep-sea shrimps, which were obtained in very 

 great abundance, were commonly of an intensely bright scarlet ; 

 deep-sea holothurians are often of a deep purple ; and many deep- 

 sea corals have their soft structures tinged with a madder colouring- 

 matter resembling that which occurs in surface-swimming jelly-fish. 



As was to be expected from the results of the Lightning and 

 Porcupine dredging s, the more extended explorations of the 

 Challenger have shown that there still live on the sea-depths a 

 number of animal forms which were supposed, until thus found, 

 to be extinct, existing only as fossils. And large numbers of 

 interesting new genera and species of known families of animals 

 were obtained ; whilst many forms which had been previously 

 accounted of extreme rarity have proved to be really common, 

 having a wide geographical range, and occurring in large numbers 

 in particular spots. This is tlie case, for example, with the 

 beautiful Pentacrinus, a survivor from the old Liassic times, of 

 which the living specimens preserved in all the museums of the 

 world could a i&n years ago have been counted on the fingers, all 

 of them having been brought up on fishing-lines from the neigh- 

 bourhood of the West India Islands. As many as twenty speci- 

 mens of a new species of this most interesting type, however, had 

 been brought up from a depth of 800 fathoms in one of the Por- 

 cupine dredgings off the coast of Portugal. The Challenger made 

 a large collection, including several new species, from various 

 localities. And yet more recently the dredgings of Professor 

 Alexander Agassiz in the Gulf of Mexico have shown how thickly 

 many parts of the sea-bed are covered with these " lily stars " 

 mounted upon their long wavy stalks. 



Those, however, who had expected results of greater zoo- 

 logical and palaeontological importance from these explorations 

 must confess to some disappointment : — 



" Most enthusiastic representations (says Mr. Moseley) were 

 " held by many naturalists, and such were especially put forward 

 " by the late Professor Agassiz, who had hopes of finding almost 

 *'all important fossil forms existing in life and vigour at great 



