102 ATLANTIC OCEAN. [chap. rm. 



the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These claws are 

 very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed back- 

 wards : their curved extremities are flattened, and on this part 

 ' five most minute cups are placed which seem to act in the same 

 manner as tlie suckers on. the arms of the cuttle-fish. As the 

 animal lives in the open sea, and probably wants a place of rest, 

 I suppose this beautiful and most anomalous structure is adapted 

 to take hold of floating marine animals. 



In deep v/ater, far from the land, the number of living crea- 

 tures is extremely small : south of the latitude 35°, I never suc- 

 ceeded in catching anything besides some beroe, and a few species 

 of minute entomostracous Crustacea. In shoaler water, at the 

 distance of a few miles from the coast, very many kinds of Crus- 

 tacea and some other animals are numerous, but only during the 

 night. Between latitudes 56° and 57° south of Cape Horn, the 

 net was put astern several times ; it never, however, brought up 

 anything besides a few of two extremely minute species of Ento- 

 mostraca. Yet whales and seals, petrels and albatross, are ex- 

 ceedingly abundant throughout this part of the ocean. It has 

 always been a mystery to me on what the albatross, which lives 

 far from the shore, can subsist ; I presume that, like the condor, 

 it is able to fast long ; and that one good feast on the carcass 

 of a putrid whale lasts for a long time. The central and inter- 

 tropical parts of the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, 

 and Radiata, and with their devourers the flying-fish, and again 

 with their devourers the bonitos and albicores ; I presume that 

 the numerous lower pelagic animals feed on the Infusoria, which 

 are now known, from the researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in 

 the open ocean: but on what, in the clear blue water, do tliese 

 Infusoria subsist ? 



While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark 

 night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spec- 

 tacle. There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the sur- 

 face, whicli during the day is seen as foam, now glowed with 

 a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two billows 

 of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was followed by a 

 milky train. As far as the eye reached, the crest of every 

 wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon, from the re- 

 flected glare of these livid flames, was not so utterly obscure 

 as over the vault of the heavens. 



