THREE CRUISES OF THE “BLAKE.” 
24 
quite a strong shock to Commander Bartlett and me. The 
goose-fish and the hag go down at least over 350, the “ Norway 
haddock" to more than 150 fathoms. The swordfish, when 
attacked at the surface, is able to “sound ” with ease and ra- 
pidity to a depth of 500 or 1,000 feet, arriving at the bottom 
with such force as to imbed its sword at full length in the mud, 
and there seems to be nothing to prevent powerful swimmers 
from visiting the bottom at any time when the conditions of tem- 
perature will permit. Scopelus, one of the most common pelagic 
fishes, may live at considerable depths: it comes up to the sur- 
face mainly during calm nights. 
The number of representatives of shallow- water families 
dredged below 100 fathoms and down to a depth of 500 fath- 
oms is quite large, but diminishes rapidly below that depth, two 
or three extending only to 700 fathoms, and an equal number 
to 1,000 and 2,000 fathoms. 
To the bottom-living species which may have made their way 
gradually down to deep water upon the continental slopes be- 
long preéminently the flat fishes. Fourteen species have been 
detected on our Atlantic coast, living beyond the hundred-fathom 
Fig. 197. — Monolene atrimana. About 4. 
line. One of them (Monolene) (Fig. 197) comes from 300 fath- 
oms, and three genera occur well down toward the thousand- 
fathom line. The pole flounder ranges beyond this limit, and 
breeds in deep water. It has the cavernous skeleton of the deep- 
sea fishes. In Bedford Basin, Nova Scotia, and in adjacent 
waters, it lives at depths of about 15 to 20 fathoms, and yet indi- 
viduals eaptured there exhibit the peculiarities of abyssal types. 
