There is an eel of the deep sea, however, which can dispose of even larger meals than these, for it has actually been known to swallow fishes of greater size than itself. This may seem impossible: the fact is that its jaws, like those of a python1, can be separated to a surprising extent, while the flesh of its throat and body is exceedingly elastic. In one of these fishes, when brought to the surface, was found the twisted-up body of another fish three times as long as itself; from another were taken victims amounting to nearly five times its own weight; while a third had swallowed a captive so large that it had1 Python: a large-mouthed snake, somewhat like a boa-constrictor.
actually dislocated its own fins in doing so!
The fishing frog.
Ⅱ
But how do these deep-sea fishes contrive to resist the enormous pressure which throughout their lives they have to sustain?
That is not an easy question to answer. All we can say is that the whole framework of their bodies is so flimsy, that it could not perform its functions without a great weight of water to hold it, as it were, together, and that the gases contained in their swimming-bladders, and dissolved in their blood, neutralize1 the pressure to some extent, and enable them to live at depths to which otherwise they could never descend.
Owing to this fact, it is very difficult indeed to obtain specimens of these fishes in perfect condition. As soon as they1 Neutralize: destroy the effect of.
are raised from the bottom, the pressure begins to decrease, and the gases in their bodies to expand; and long before they reach the surface, their internal organs are generally forced out of their mouths, and their eyes from the sockets, while their bodies are so flattened and distorted that their true shape can only be guessed at.
Sometimes, too, a most curious accident befalls one of these creatures. Eagerly pursuing a victim, perhaps, it incautiously rises to too great a distance from the sea-bottom. Its swimming- bladder of course expands as the pressure upon it is reduced, and renders the fish so much lighter in proportion to its size that, when it attempts to sink to the bottom, it finds itself unable to do so. Still rising, the pressure is yet further reduced, till at last the body of the hapless creature literally bursts, and floats upward, mangled and shapeless, to the surface of the sea. These fishes, in fact, have constantly to be on their guard against the danger, not of falling downward, but of tumbling upward!
But other remarkable creatures besides fishes are found in the depths of the sea. There is a crab, for instance, which carries its young about in an odd ;little pouch on the lower surface of the body, just as the kangaroo does. Thus, while they are still small and unable to defend themselves, the little creatures are protected from their many enemies. Another crab has legs nearly four times as long as its body, while the body and limbs of a third are so densely clothed with long, sharp spines, that it can only be handled with the very greatest care. Most of these deep-sea crabs are entirely blind, the curious eyestalks, on which the organs of vision are usually set, being absent.
There is a very strange hermit crab, too, which is found at a depth of three thousand fathoms, or rather more than three miles and a quarter. Like all hermit crabs, it has its long, flexible tail unprotected by the shelly armor that covers the rest of the body, and is therefore obliged in some way to guard it from the attacks of its enemies. Empty whelk-shells, however, which are generally employed for this purpose by other hermit crabs, are not to be found in the depths of the ocean; so it either forms cases for its tail of sand, fastened together in some curious way which has not been satisfactorily explained, or else makes use of pieces of bamboo, which, being saturated with water, have slowly sunk to the bottom, or of the holes in lumps of water-logged wood. On the back of this crab, strange to say, a small sea anemone is generally found to be living.
Then there are some very remarkable creatures known as sea spiders, which combine the characteristics of insects, spiders, and crabs. Their legs are very long indeed, and their bodies are very small, while the mouth is placed at the top of a long beak which runs out from the front of the head. But the strangest feature of these animals is that a branch of the stomach runs down each of the legs, almost as far as the claw at the tip!
Finally, there are stalked crinoids, or sea lilies, which may be briefly described as starfishes growing at the end of long stalks. These stalks are made up of an astonishing number of tiny joints-as many as a hundred and fifty thousand having been found in the stem of a single sea lily-while the base is fastened down to the surface of a rock by a number of spreading rootlets.
In days of old these stalked crinoids were extremely plentiful;marble, for instance, often consists of little else than the joints of their stems, and the rocks in many parts of the world are full of their fossil remains. But until the bed of the deep sea was explored, it was supposed that they had become almost entirely extinct.
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A stalked crinoid, or sea lily.
1.Natural size. 2. Cup and arms. 3. Single arm. (Nos. 2 and 3 magnified.)Now, however, we know 10 that the floor of the ocean is in many places densely clothed with them, just as it must have been almost everywhere thousands of years ago.
Such are some of the wonders of the deep sea. Many more there are which space will not allow me to describe, or even to mention. And we can have little doubt that when the great abysses of the ocean have been more thoroughly explored, our knowledge of its inmates will be very largely increased, and that even stranger creatures will be found to exist than any which have yet been discovered.