6o 
DEEP-SEA LAMPS 
feet. Like the other “ anglers/’ it has a huge mouth 
armed with long uneven teeth, and a pendent “ fishing- 
rod ” tentacle which attracts other fish like a bait. 
In the shallow-water “anglers” this tentacle resembles 
something edible by fish. In the deep-water species 
it is fitted with an organ which is supposed to be a 
phosphorus lamp, and to play the part of a “Will-o’- 
the-Wisp” in attracting little fishes to the angler’s 
jaws. 
The phosphorescent power is by no means confined 
to the fishes proper of the deep sea. Starfish and 
most of the various forms of zoophytes possess it, 
though in less perfect organs. One poured out 
“ clouds of a pale-blue, highly luminous substance, 
which not only illuminated the observer’s hands and 
surrounding objects in the vessel in which it was 
confined, but finally communicated a luminosity to 
the water itself ; ” another threw out light of a brilliant 
green, coruscating from the centre, now along one 
arm, now along another. In view of the phosphores- 
cence even of the surface of the sea when full of 
luminous creatures, it is not rash to conclude that the 
eternal night of the abyss is in places lighted with 
sufficient brilliance by its phosphorescent zoophytes 
and fishes. Where these are few or absent, there 
must be darkness either partial or complete. Hence 
we are presented with the perfectly reconcilable con- 
tradiction of deep-sea creatures with eyes of high 
development, and others with no eyes at all ; one 
species possessing eyes with four thousand facets, 
