CHAPTER XI
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Ocean Seasons
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ONE of the most obvious phenomena on land in our climes'
is the rotation of the seasons.
If We
loose from a prisonin which for many years we had lost
'
count of time, and
our course
to a
country garden, a wooded valley “or a mountain marsh,
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we could read at a glance by the presence ofowers, birds
or
insects the season-of the year.
We can follow this
endless dailybhangein-our gardenä; inrthe woods, and in
ponds, but to many the seasons of the sea are a closed book,
save ”for the changes tobe seen in that marrow fringe around
our shores,‘ the tidal zone;
It is for this reason that the subject is given a chapter
to- itself, to emphasize the fact that there are seasons in
the ocean, and that inthe causes of the seasona1 changes
lie some of the most fascinating problems of marine research;
Ferhaps n‘owhere can the signs of the seasons ”be more
clearly read than in that drifting Community_of plant and
animal life knoWn as the ‘plankt0n.
Anyone 'WhO takes
collections
the t0W net at regular intervals of time
_
,
in-the waters off o'ur cdaSts Will be struck at once by the
unexpected suddenness with which the compositiOn of
_
the catches may change from Week to Week.
will see,
;
as it were, an èwerchanging panorama of life.
__
In the early
the year; March and April, when
the
the heavens and its light increasing
‘
in strength, we note a very great change in the plankt0n‘
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