DEEP-SEA LOBSTERS 149 



good eyes and some bad. Those with good eyes 

 would gradually have been able to make themselves 

 at home in the moderate depths (loo to 200 fathoms) 

 which are faintly lit by some struggling gleams of 

 light, and they, by a gradual and natural weeding out 

 of all the optically-unfit individuals, would, in the 

 course of generations, have been transformed into a 

 race like Nephrops, which is characterised by eyes 

 of extraordinary power. At the other extreme, those 

 with bad eyes could quite naturally have adapted 

 themselves to those pitchy abysses, where eyes are 

 not only useless, but, being sensitive and peculiarly 

 vulnerable structures, are a source of danger, and 

 there, by the continuous elimination, through many 

 generations, of such unfit individuals as still retained 

 these effete organs, would at last evolve into a form 

 like Nephropsis, whose eyes are gone, but whose 

 eyestalks remain, like, as has been aptly remarked, 

 armorial bearings that give evidence of a nobler de- 

 scent. 



Before I leave speaking of this prolific trawling- 

 ground, I must mention that, several years afterwards, 

 my successor in the l7tvestigator, Dr A. R. Anderson, 

 again had the trawl shot on this very spot, in the hope 

 of repeating this miraculous draught ; but on the 

 second occasion, although no mistake or accident is 

 known to have occurred, almost nothing was taken 

 — a result as unexpected as inexplicable. 



