READY-BOILED LOBSTERS 77 



habitually frequent ocean drift ; and secondly, that the 

 neighbourhood of ocean drift is so dangerous, by reason 

 of sharks, that this power of concealment must often 

 be of vital moment to fishes that have this habit. 



As we lay-to one day, we caught one of these 

 sharks, and found it to be a female, nearly feet long, 

 of Carcharias dMss^imieri, with ten young ones inside 

 her, each of them 2 feet in length. These we delivered 

 by Caesarean section, and turned into a tub of seawater, 

 where they swam about with perfect unconcern. 



The same day two blue whales, not less than 50 

 feet long, came within a mile of us, and gave us an 

 acrobatic performance. 



We had two hauls of the deep-sea trawl on this 

 passage. The first time the rope gave as we were 

 heaving in and the trawl was lost, but the second 

 time we were successful, and got great store of crus- 

 taceans, chiefly of the genus Munida, from 480-500 

 fathoms about 30 miles west of Cape Bluff All of 

 them had the peculiar boiled - lobster tint which is 

 almost characteristic of crustaceans which live at this 

 depth. 



It may here be mentioned that almost all the Crus- 

 tacea of the deep sea, except perhaps those which are 

 really confined to the abyssal depths, are either crimson 

 or lurid yellow, or some shade between these two 

 colours. The dwellers in the abysses, however, are 

 more often of a chalky tint, either pure or tinged 



