200 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



Bivalve crustacca — Ostracod-like 4,920 



271,080 



If we multiply this by one hundred and fifty we 

 get forty million, six hundred and sixty-two thou- 

 sand individuals. Please remember that this is a 

 very conservative estimate of only a few of the 

 more easily counted groups in one small haul of 

 an hour's duration, and the magnitude of the life of 

 the sea will begin to dawn upon our minds. Twelve 

 hours later — in full daylight — I repeated the haul 

 as closely as possible and, instead of forty million, 

 I captured about one thousand individuals of the 

 corresponding groups. So although plankton is 

 an involuntary horizontal wanderer, yet vertically 

 it has more perfect control, and having developed 

 its own system of lighting it will have nothing of 

 the sun or even of moonlight, and remains well 

 below reach of the stronger rays. 



My own interest in plankton is wholly that of 

 trying to disentangle the lives of some of the small 

 people — to put myself in their places by day and 

 night, but I feel that I must establish their im- 



