162 Deep-Sea Chimaeras 



coasts, and it is hoped that in due time it may once 

 more attain to its former abundance. 



In concluding this notice of the Tile-fish, I feel 

 that an apology is due to him for classing him at aU 

 under the heading of chimseras, from which category 

 his beauty both of form and colour should certainly 

 keep him distinct. The same feeling prevents me from 

 going into details concerning the halibut, various sorts 

 of flounders and soles, and gurnards also, aU of whom 

 are found in very deep waters, but are none of them 

 chimseras in any sense. It seems a pity that, now 

 the narrow seas have been so well fished for soles and 

 flat-fish generally that the price of them is becoming 

 prohibitive, there could not be devised some means 

 for fishing those greater depths, in which it seems 

 fairly certain huge supplies of them are to be found, 

 apparently awaiting the coming of usefulness to man- 

 kind. 



From the foregoing pages many very queer fish 

 have been excluded because of their trivial size. For 

 in tiny creatures both of land and sea we are accus- 

 tomed to see strange developments of form and colour, 

 and they excite no wonder. If, however, we could 

 find a creature as large as a horse developed into the 

 similitude of, say, an ant, or a bull into a beetle, our 

 wonder would be almost beyond bounds. For this 

 reason I have not mentioned the marvellous genus 

 of fishes in the profundities of ocean who carry their 

 own installations of electric light as it were. They 

 are truly amazing, yet not more so than the fire-fly 

 or the glow-worm, and they are all of insignificant 

 size, say from four to six inches long. There is just 

 this difficulty though about dealing with them ; it 

 may very well be that the larger ones are too swift 

 and too wary to be taken in the trawls of the fish- 



