150 DARK UNFATHOMED CAVES OF OCEAN 



Our trawling in 405 fathoms, though not equal to 

 the first, was still very productive. The bottom was 

 the same green mud, but the temperature had fallen 

 to 47° Fahr. There were Hexactinellid sponges, dozens 

 of specimens of Phormosoma, and a fine specimen of a 

 coral {Flabelhim laciniatum), which until then had been 

 known only from the North Atlantic, and as a fossil 

 from the Tertiary rocks of southern Europe. There 

 were many rarities among the Crustacea of this haul, 

 one of the more remarkable being a blind shrimp 

 {Prionocrangon omiiiatosteres), in which the eyes are 

 completely aborted, and the eyestalks reduced to 

 scales ; but perhaps in compensation for its blindness, 

 the basal joint of its first pair of antennae, in which the 

 organ of hearing is enclosed, is of singularly large size. 

 Psalidopus spiniventris is another very strange shrimp 

 which was taken at this haul. This creature is covered 

 like a porcupine with long and sharp spines, but the 

 most peculiar parts of it are the first and second pairs 

 of legs ; the first pair end, not in mere pincers like 

 those of ordinary crabs and lobsters, in which one 

 blade is fixed, but in scissors of which both blades 

 are movable and work across one another ; the second 

 pair end in a brush, like a camels-hair pencil, instead 

 of in an ordinary claw. It is impossible to say what 

 the peculiar conditions of life are that have led to this 

 peculiar modification of the legs of Psalidopus. The 

 brushes of the second pair of legs may, perhaps, be 



