Down in those awful deeps it is for ever dark, and freezing cold, There is no day or night, summer or winter.  No plants can live there.  Yet in that strange, still world there are numbers of living things, though we know very little about them.  There are weird Crabs, blind Lobsters, and fish terrors such as are never seen elsewhere.

In that darkness you would think that eyes would be of no use, but some of the deep-sea fish have great black owl-like eyes.  Others are quite blind, or have eyes like pin-points.  Some of them make their own light, glowing with rows of little lamps on their bodies, each like the lamp of the glow-worm of our country lanes.  Blue, red, and green these lights are, but no one can tell you their real use, or why they are so coloured.  The blind fish feel their way with long feelers, stretched out like the threads of a web.

[Illustration:  THE FISHING FROG.]

As there are no plants down there, these strange fish must live mostly on one another!  And here is a puzzle, for some of them have great big bodies, but small heads and tiny mouths; others have bodies like ribbons, but large heads and huge mouths, and some are such gluttons that they swallow fish twice their own size!  This sounds absurd, but it is true.  Their mouths gape open like trap-doors, and their stomachs are made to stretch, to hold their huge meals!  There are other terrors of the deep with such big teeth that they cannot shut their mouths.  No doubt the sea holds yet other weird fish which no man has seen.

EXERCISES

1.  In what ways is the Sea-horse so different from most other fish? 2.  In what ways are the Sea-horse and Pipe-fish alike? 3.  How does the Angler-fish catch its prey? 4.  Mention a few strange facts about the deep-sea fish.

LESSON XI

THE GARDEN OF THE SEA

For many centuries men were puzzled over those strange growths in the sea—­Corals and Sponges.  Were they to be classed as animals or as vegetables?  It was by no means an easy question to answer.

Corals, with their pretty colour, and their stems and branches growing up from the sea-bed, were said to be shrubs, but they were as hard as rock, said some people, so how could they be vegetables?  The reply to this was, that the Coral became hard as soon as it reached the air.  Then, of course, it was found that Coral was as hard under water as above it, and the question was still unanswered.

Sponges, too, were thought to be sea-plants for many, many years; though some people even said that they must really be made of hardened sea-foam!  The Sponge took its place in the vegetable kingdom, then it was moved to the animal kingdom, and back again.

This went on for long years.  Then, by careful watching, it was found that the Sponge is an animal.  True, it is a very lowly member of the great kingdom of animals, yet it is one, and not a plant.