156 Deep-Sea Chimceras 



their bodies, at what misery to his involuntary hosts 

 can only be imagined. 



It is curious and instructive to compare him with 

 Eurypharynx, well sumamed Pelicanoides, who, with 

 a body like the thong of a stock-whip, has a head about 

 thrice its body's bulk, and jaws opening exactly like 

 the mandibles of a pelican. This amazing mouth 

 splits the big head right in two lengthways, and the 

 eyes are situated right at the end of the upper jaw, 

 looking indeed like tiny nostrils, for they are mere 

 points. Yet for aU its fearsome appearance this is 

 evidently one of the most harmless of fish. It appears 

 to live upon the tiniest marine organisms, which in 

 some unexplainable way it collects in its chasm of a 

 mouth from the surrounding sea. It has no teeth, a 

 tail tapering off like the lash of a whip, and for all 

 sign of fins a series of spines protruding from its back 

 and belly without any membranes between them. 



A deep-water fish akin to Chiasmodon, and found 

 at a depth of nine hundred fathoms, has an even wider 

 mouth, but no teeth in the lower jaw. Its only fins 

 are a pair of rudimentary pectorals with the gill-slits 

 behind them. About fourteen inches of its body is 

 mainly stomach, through the walls of which transparent 

 organ may be seen calmly reposing the body of a 

 large fish which has been induced to take up its per- 

 manent abode there. But the rest of the body, four 

 feet or so, is like a whip-lash. In the specimen before 

 me there appears to be one fish going ahead and another 

 going astern, two heads on the same body, for the head 

 of the swallowed fish seems about to emerge from the 

 rear of the stomach and swim away. It is a very quaint 

 beast indeed, and rejoices or suffers under the euphoni- 

 ous epithet of Saccopharynx fiagellum. 



Alepisaurus ferox is the name given to a fish that 



