41 THE WORLD BENEATH THE WAVES 



really large haul of deep-sea animals one should work 

 — at any rate in Indian seas — in water between 200 

 and 1000 fathoms deep, not too far from shore. 



Finally, although the physical conditions of life in 

 the depths of the sea are so peculiar, the workings 

 of life there do not seem to be shut in much narrower 

 compass than they are elsewhere. There, as else- 

 where, the three great exigencies — to find something 

 to eat, to avoid being oneself eaten, and to disseminate 

 one's species — give rise to a perpetual struggle for 

 place, in which the fittest are successful ; and this in 

 turn must lead, in every class of the animal kingdom 

 which is there represented, to a series of transforma- 

 tion scenes, in which everything is, like Fluellen's 

 picture of fortune, ''turning, and inconstant, and 

 mutability, and variation." 



