242 DEEP-SEA FISHES OF INDIAN OCEAN 



are of minute size ; but to make up for this, seven of the 

 rays of each pectoral fin, as well as two of each ventral 

 and two of the caudal fin, are enormously lengthened 

 as if to serve as feelers. A creature like this, lying with 

 all its pectoral filaments shot forward, its long ventral 

 feelers widely stretched out on either side, and its caudal 

 streamers trailing far behind, would be like a spider in 

 its web, alert on every quarter to the slightest touch 

 from victim or foe. 



Bathypterois guentheri, again, is one of the very few 

 truly abyssal fishes of these seas that is not uniformly 

 or sombrely coloured. Its head and fins are black, 

 except the tail fin, which is white, and its body is a 

 rich puce-brown, with two broad white cross-bandsj 

 There are thirteen other Indian species, all living in 

 the gloomy borderland which slopes from the loo- 

 fathom line towards the abysses, in which the body 

 is banded after a somewhat similiar fashion. The first 

 of these is Chlorophthalmus corniger, from 145-250 

 fathoms, belonging to the same family as Bathypterois, 

 in which the body is grey, with numerous dusky cross- 

 bands. Scy Ilium qttagga, a dogfish from 102 fathoms, 

 is striped like the animal after which it is named. In 

 Bembrops cattdiinaatla (Fig. 12), a Star-gazer living in 

 107-194 fathoms, the body is darkly cross-banded, and 

 there are some small greenish *'eyes" on the head. 

 Gobius cometes, a goby from 89-107 fathoms, is cross- 

 gartered in yellow, after the style of Malvolio's stockings. 



