Still in the dense darkness the Beryx must surely escape? No! for, strangely enough, lights are travelling about in this midnight region. The monster himself carries lamps upon his body, and a shoal of small oblong fish, something of the size and shape of a gudgeon, come swimming by, carrying on their sides whole rows of shining spots giving out phosphorescent light; while not far off another fish, called in India the Bombay duck, glows all over, as if his whole body had been rubbed in phosphorus. Nay! so far as we know the Beryx himself is probably gleaming with light, for his body is covered with a large quantity of the same slimy fluid which makes the “Bombay duck” phosphorescent when he is freshly drawn out of the sea. So these curious fish, living in eternal darkness except when they make an expedition to the surface, carry many of them their own lights; and as we go deeper still more and more of them are found with shining mother-of-pearl-like spots on their head, or sides, or tail, so that the very darkness is alive with light. What slaughter and hunting there is among them! for they all eat each other, and even their own young, there being no plants for any of them to feed on. There are the deep-sea cod-fish; strange forms with large heads, long tapering tails, and thread-like fins, chasing the smaller fish, and falling victims themselves to the fierce _Stomias_ which comes sailing along with its row of glowing lights, and its huge sharp teeth, ready to seize its prey. Both these fish go down as deep as ten thousand feet and more, accompanied by another fish quite as ferocious, though only a foot long, with large teeth sticking out of its mouth like the tusks of a boar, and curious round spots, with lenses in them, on its side, which may be eyes, or may be lanterns to light it on its road; and among these luminous fishes are wriggling along the deep-sea Conger eels, with toothless mouths and elastic stomachs, swallowing large fish whole; while another curious cod-like fish, whose stomach can stretch to more than four times its natural size, draws itself over its prey just as a snake does, and carries it in the hanging bag till it is digested. And deeper yet in the dead calm water roam many fishes with delicate feelers hanging from their mouths, while their fins are slender and tapering, so that they feel their way along the still depths. Among these are the Ribbon-fish, twenty feet long but only a foot deep, and never more than two inches thick in any part, with their long rosy fins floating like ribbons back from their heads and from under the body.[26]