The Challenger appears to be picking up very curious crea-
tures from the bottom of the Atlantic. It has dredged up creatures almost entirely composed of eyes, in which the body is a mere appendage to the eyes, and another, a crustacea, in whirl the eyes—if there ever were any—have taken leave of the body, and the body is totally blind, but furnished with the most deli- cate claws, by which the animal feels its way about. It seems not surprising that in the deep-sea depths there should either be a very highly-developed apparatus of vision, or none at all. The light must be exceedingly small in amount, and therefore if the creature is to use it, it must have the finest possible sense of vision. There would be no natural advantage in common eyes in such a medium,—probably a natural disadvantage, as if it could not see with them, it would be always getting injured in them. And that may be the reason why these extremes of eyelessness and eyefulness meet.
Previous page
