Fishes . Fig, 285.—Iicrichtnijs serpentinus Gill. Gulf Stream. Dr. Gill says of these fishes: The entire organization is peculiarto the extent of anomaly, and our old conceptions of the char-acteristics of a fish require to be modified in the light of ourknowledge of such strange beings. Special features are theextraordinary size of the mouth, which has a cavity larger thanthat of the rest of the body, the insertion of the very smalleye at the tip of the snout, and the relative length of the whole substance is excessively fragile as usual with animalsliving in great depths and the col
Fishes . Fig, 285.—Iicrichtnijs serpentinus Gill. Gulf Stream. Dr. Gill says of these fishes: The entire organization is peculiarto the extent of anomaly, and our old conceptions of the char-acteristics of a fish require to be modified in the light of ourknowledge of such strange beings. Special features are theextraordinary size of the mouth, which has a cavity larger thanthat of the rest of the body, the insertion of the very smalleye at the tip of the snout, and the relative length of the whole substance is excessively fragile as usual with animalsliving in great depths and the color is jet black. Three species. Fig. i!88.—Gulper-eel, Gastrostomus bairdi Gill A Kyder. (Julf .Stre:im. have been described, and these have been placed in two families,SaccopharyngidcB, with the trunk (gill-opening to the vent) muchlonger than the head, and Eurypharyngidce, with the trunk veryshort, much shorter than the head. The best-known speciesis the pelican eel {Eurypharynx pelacanoides), of the coast ofMorocco, described by Vaillant in 1882. Gastrostomus bairdi,very much like it, occurs in the great depths under the GulfStream. So fragile and so easily distorted are these fishes that 576 The Apodes, or Eel-like Fishes it is possible that all three are really the same species, for whichthe oldest name would be Saccopharynx ampiillaceiis. Of thisform four specimens have been taken in the Atlantic, one ofthem six feet long, carried to the surface through havingswallowed fishes too large to be controlled. To be carried aboveits depth in a struggle with its prey is one of the greatest dangersto which the abysma
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