IANTERN-FISIIES PROPER. The foregoing spe cies do not possess light-giving organs to any considerable degree, if at all hut most of the group are provided with phosphoreseent lanterns. The family contains about 100 spe cies, all of small size, carnivorous, and very widely distributed in the open seas. They some times come to the surface at night or in stormy weather, but ordinarily dwell in the depths. All have luminous spots or photophorcs more or less regularly placed along (lie sides of the body, while larger light-giving glands are lodged in the head, or near the tail, or both. One of the most vivid light-bearers is a. steel-blue Pacific Coast species (Tarlclonbcania (sera), whose light-spots are shown in Fig. 4. It also has large func tional eyes, and erenulated scales, but no lateral line. The name 'viper-fishes' has been given to the genus represented by a species (rhauliodus Sloane() about twelve inches long, discovered on the Banks of Newfoundland. It has both eyes and photophores, ant: also a tactile ray, extending from the dorsal fin. It is also an inhabitant of the North Pacific. Somewhat similar, and highly endowed with luminous organs, is Phatonectes graeilis, known only from a single specimen. 7 inches long, taken off Martinique, 472 fathoms below the surface. Even more extraordinary is
the small black fish (Malacost ells nitier) repre sented in Fig. 10. It lives in very deep water, yet has large, useful eyes, as Well as two 'head lights' in the form of strong luminous organs• near the eyes, and many photophures on the body. The curious way in which the lower jaw is at tached to the sknll is unique among fishes. This connection is made by a cylindrical muscular band, which Gunther believes to be contractile, "serving to give the extremity of the mandible power of resistance when the fish has seized its as without such a contrivance so long and slender a bone as the jaw would be broken by the victim's struggles. Argyropeleeus (Fig. 7) represents a group of fishes, only two or three inches long, that come to the surface at night, and during the day descend into the depths.
t'unsuit the general authorities mentioned under Fist!, and especially Goode and Beau, (k, attic Ichthyology (Cambridge, 1896), where complete references to the literature relating to deep-sea fishes will be found.
Sea DEEP-EA ENPLORATION for the methods by which many of these fishes have been obtained; and LUMINOSITY OF ANIMALS for a more par ticular account of their light-giving organs.