264 THE DEAL-FISH 



quite, insuperable in the way of obtaining a perfect 

 specimen of the deal-fish, and it is doubtful whether 

 an un mutilated adult has ever come into human hands. 

 For despite its considerable size, the deal-fish is fitted 

 only for existence in the still, abysmal depths of the 

 northern ocean. It is so loosely put together as to be 

 quite unfit for conflict with the waves and strong 

 currents of the upper waters, and generally falls to 

 pieces when an attempt is made to raise it in a dead or 

 dying condition from the surface. Once let a deal-fish 

 be forced by some untoward agency from its native 

 profundity and its fate is sealed. It never can return 

 to the deep sea, for high pressure is essential to its 

 active existence, and when that pressure is removed by 

 the fish being forced into comparatively shallow water, 

 it drifts helplessly on the surface, without the power 

 of descending, until finally it is washed ashore and 

 supplies matter for a paragraph in the local journals. 



Of the life history of the deal-fish practically nothing 

 is known, save that its home is in the deep sea between 

 Iceland and Norway. It is even uncertain what is its 

 normal aspect before the rude waters of the surface 

 have broken away many of its fin-rays, which, in the 

 closely kindred Mediterranean species (T. Iris) grow to 

 an extraordinary length, measuring in young specimens 

 four or five times the length of the body. But one of 

 the most distinctive features in this fish usually re- 

 mains namely, the caudal fin, or tail, as it is popularly 

 called, which is not set continuously to the spine as in 

 other fishes, but juts up abruptly nearly at right angles 

 to the spine, having the appearance of a fan. 



