THE INTERMEDIATE FOODS OF THE SEA 1 67 



brought up to the ship the underside was seen to be festooned 

 with growths about which played many httle fishes, and on 

 being hoisted on board many kinds of animals were found 

 among the "weeds." Almost as soon as the steamer got under 

 way again everything vanished, and the sea became as de- 

 serted as before. But about a score of small sharks and as 

 many pilot fish lay on the fore deck, evidence of the prowess 

 of some of the Chinese women in the steerage. 



On the Pacific in low latitudes we found that we were most 

 successful in finding oceanic life in the daytime if we lowered 

 our tow-nets to about 600 feet beneath the surface. In this 

 region there is twilight even on the brightest day at noon, and 

 it is at these or somewhat lesser depths that the sea animals 

 for the most part seek refuge from the light. 



The animals taken in a haul 600 feet or more below the 

 surface in the daytime and in another haul in the same place 

 taken on the surface at 9 or 10 o'clock at night are not quite 

 alike. Most of them are the same, but in the deeper haul 

 there are to be found various large shrimp-Hke crustaceans 

 mostly bright red in color, strange jelly-fishes of a deep red, 

 and different sorts of sooty black fishes, some armed with 

 enormous teeth and most ferocious in appearance, others long 

 and eel-like with snipe-hke jaws, and others looking more like 

 ordinary fishes but with rows of brilliant phosphorescent lights 

 along their sides; quite commonly there are also little dis- 

 torted silvery fishes, also with lights, and sometimes little 

 black sharks from 6 or 8 inches to a foot in length. 



These creatures are representatives of the deep oceanic 

 fauna which remains below the illuminated upper layers of the 

 sea, feeding upon the surface animals when these descend in 

 the daytime to escape the sunlight, and upon the smaller 

 animals about them. 



The oceanic plants can descend only to a maximum depth 

 of about 650 feet in the most transparent water; but the ani- 

 mals which feed upon them form the food of other animals 

 which live deeper, in perpetual shade, and these again furnish 



