'
'
PELAGIC PLANTS AND
waters that the ahundance and variety of animals are in many: >
respects due, especially if estuaries alSo dehouch in the neigh—ï
’
bourhood.
Thus nowhere are the swarms of Sagittæ, Appen—
dicularians, Crustaceans, and other groups of sh—food more
conspicuous than in the midst of a sea teeming with diatoms,
,
“
Rhizosbleniæ and other algoid structures.’.
‘ Now this plant—
'
life is specially rich in April and May, just when the larval
and very young post—larval shes appear more ahundantly in_
_
the inshore waters, so that the cycle is nearly complete, viz.,_
from the inorganic medium—through microscopical plant” and
larval crustaCean—to the post-larval
Similar views have
been broached by Prof. Hensen of the German Expeditions and '
Dr George Murray of the British Museum; while Prof. Cleve,
of Upsala, is of opinion that even the "origin of the coastal
currents in certain cases may be traced by-their diatoms 2.
,
_
,
Besides, both adult and adolescent marine sheS Such as
_
sand—eels devour the green and
algæ of the _
Eden, even to the distention of their’stomachs- in May. Algae, .
are
not uncommon accompaniments of food in other
;shes.
__
,«
Î
. f _
_
.
Broadly speaking, therefore, the sea has within its area
a
_
,
vast and ever—present source of nourishmeht for its teeming
.
animals—a source altogether independent of the increment —_Ï:j
…from xed _marine vegetation on shore or swept into .it by - {f
'
'
_
…rivers.
This supply can in no way he affected by the action of»
who is as poweriess to modify it as to modify the tides.
_—
;: 30 long as it remains, one of the most important factors for the
_
_
of the food—shes is-secured.
_
'
_
,
In "the ocean are immense numbers of Foraminifera and
’
upon Which the lower invertehrates prey
‘
,
.
,
“thesurface and the bottom. They in turn
on diatoms .an
_
_
other simple plants and animals, and thus aid in mmplèhig”
_
_
;…Èhe c‘yCle om plant to sh. The records of;the rocks show
of both groups
Were as premietm the ancieiit seas