FISH SHOT WITH POPGUN

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 264, 3 August 1929, Page 29

FISH SHOT WITH POPGUN

SOME HAVE EYES ON STALKS

Fish with eyes on stalks longer than their bodies, minute marine murderers and other weird deep-sea animals were described by Miss Gloria Hollister, technical associate of the Bermuda Oceanographic Expedition, under Dr. William Beebe, which is conducting deep and shallow water research off Nonsuch Island, Bermuda. Miss Hollister, who is in charge of all the chemical work, has been with the expedition since it set out from New York on March 13. She is here on a brief visit, and will return. on June 22 to remain until the end’ of October,

The results both from the deep-sea trawling and the shallow-water experiments have been so great, said Miss Hollister, that Dr. Beebe cannot possibly complete the work this year and hopes to return for another season. Of the many strange and often grotesque specimens of marine life, Miss Hollister said, none is more astonishing than the luminescent sea dragons with their huge mouths and purple, black, yellow, and red spots; the many varieties of, giant scarlet or transparent shrimps; the strange flounders with stalklike eyes that work independently, one looking backward and the other forward. These flounders had a tannish hue and blue markings, but could change to pure white and other colours tn camouflage themselves against deep-sea enemies. Miss Hollister bought with her

some glass tubes containing bizarre sea animals preserved in formalin. Alcohol is too expensive, and formalin has been found to be just as effective. In one was an inch-long fish, sardinecoloured, but. with a mouth yawning like a Japanese moonfish. In the other was a tiny and beautiful fish, its skeleton outlined in red, and a sort of jellylike outer organ protruding along the back and belly. , “Talk about our New York traffic system,” she said, “one day there was a" most amazing fish with one set of red and behind it another set of bright yellow light organs. The fish was three inches long. Once we discovered two fish completely interlocked. When we investigated there was unrolled before our eyes a perfect drama of the deep. The larger had the smaller’s head in its great mouth, but it had bitten at more than it could swallow, and in the stomachs of both these rapacious beasts were three or four smaller fish again.” Dr. Beebe has invented a sort of toy popgun, electrically charged, which is fired off to stun the shallow-water fish. Wearing the diving helmet, the ichthyologist catches the fish and it is placed in an aquarium on deck, where it soon revives and can be studied at leisure. Arrows witli electrically-loaded barbs and hooks painted with radium to attract the fish in the darkness are also used to great advantage, Miss Hollister sxplaine’3.