120 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
called sea-spiders, whose precise relationships 
are uncertain; lamp-shells and colonies re- 
lated to the sea-mat; all sorts of molluscs— 
bivalves, snails, and cuttles; the degenerate 
sea-squirts, some on long stalks; and numer- 
ous strange fishes. Here the list ends—for 
we dare not include sea-serpents in the abyssal 
fauna at least. 
Walt Whitman’s famous picture, ‘The 
World below the Brine,” refers not so much 
to the Deep Sea as to the bottom of the sea 
within the shore-area in the wide sense. But 
it is incomparably fine. 
“Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, 
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick 
tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, 
Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and 
gold, the play of the light through the water, 
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, 
rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, 
Sluggish existences grazing there or suspended close to the 
bottom, 
Sight in these ocean depths, wars, pursuits, tribes breathing 
that thick-breathing air, as so many do.” 
FITNESSES OF DEEP-SEA ANIMALS 
Many of the fixed animals of the great 
depths have long stalks which raise the im- 
