THE INTERMEDIATE FOODS OF THE SEA 1 65 



length; this was one of those reddish ones frequently seen on 

 the New England coast in the late summer. 



On and above the surface of the sea, especially in the cooler 

 regions where life is most abundant, live great numbers of 

 birds which are truly oceanic and never visit land except to 

 nest. These are mostly of the tube-nosed tribe, albatrosses, 

 shearwaters, petrels, diving petrels, etc., and some at least 

 are familiar to everyone who has ever been anywhere at sea. 

 Where ocean life is especially abundant there are multitudes 

 of auks, pufhns, murres, etc., in the northern regions, and of 

 penguins in the southern. Some terns are almost pelagic in 

 habit, like the noddy and the black-backed, and I have seen 

 tropic-birds hundreds of miles from land both in the Atlantic 

 and in the Pacific. 



These birds feed chiefly upon small crustaceans, since these 

 are oft'ered most abundantly. The albatrosses, however, eat 

 mostly squid which they catch at night, and the other larger 

 birds eat squid and fish when they can get them, especially 

 the terns and tropic birds. But nearly all of these birds will 

 eat any sea animal of suitable size or if divided into fragments 

 of suitable size, and the floating carcass of a giant squid or 

 whale affords a feast for thousands of them. 



The only oceanic insect is a httle water strider related to 

 the water striders of our ponds which picks the small crusta- 

 ceans from the sea and sucks their juices. Though smafl and 

 inconspicuous they are not rare, and I have collected many of 

 them both in the China Sea and in the Caribbean. 



But as yet the story of pelagic life is only half complete. 

 The crustaceans for the most part are the intermediates through 

 which the organic material synthesized by the minute plants 

 is made available for the use of the oceanic animals. 



Each of the larger oceanic animals represents in itself an 

 important reservoir of food for other animals. Besides the 

 predaceous t>^es there are many creatures, especially crusta- 

 ceans, that live within the stomachs of other animals eating 

 the food they swallow and within the filter of the salps con- 



