go THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
and tentacles of a huge jelly-fish swaying near 
the surface. Some jelly-fish have a disc a yard 
in diameter, and tentacles over 30 feet in 
length. 
Another sea-serpent which our friend Mr. 
James Reid of Stonehaven went far to identify 
is almost certainly the Oar-fish or Ribbon-fish 
(Regalecus), a silvery fish flattened like an 
oar, sometimes over 20 feet in length. It is 
normally a deep-water fish, but it sometimes 
swims with an undulatory motion at the surface, 
and may, when attacked by some enemy, raise 
part of its body several feet out of the water. 
FITNESSES OF THE OPEN-SEA DRIFTERS 
It is plain that one of the chief requirements 
of an animal that lives in the open sea is, that 
it should be able to keep afloat. This is se- 
cured in many different ways. Thus there are 
various arrangements for increasing the sur- 
face of the body without greatly increasing the 
weight. Many minute surface creatures are 
practically unsinkable even though their skele- 
ton is often made of flint. Their armature is 
produced into delicate processes or, in some 
cases, stalked discs like half dumb-bells, which 
