FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 209 



relied on the most amazing development of ap- 

 pendages, some having widespread, feathery tails 

 affording a great expanse of surface for support 

 in this thin medium. 



In the dark a small dish of this plankton would 

 glow like a trayful of diamonds, but in the light 

 no trace of luminescence could be detected. And 

 yet, now and then, even under the binoculars there 

 would come a flash as of fire opal. Little by little 

 I narrowed this down until I had in the field of 

 vision a single oval copepod, about an eighth of 

 an inch long. When viewed from the side it 

 showed as a mere tissuey line, but when it turned 

 on its back every color of the spectrum was 

 kindled. Sapphirina is its name, but Opalina 

 would be more appropriate. 



Traces of Aquarius or Pisces might reasonably 

 be expected in these submarine regions, but hardly 

 of Sagittarius, and yet hardly any pipette of 

 plankton would fail to show numerous little arrows 

 shooting across the field of vision. These are 

 worms in structure if not in conventional outline, 

 but their name Sagitta makes up in aptness what 

 they lack in vermiformity. They are transparent, 

 slender and quite stiff, with well-marked fins. The 

 entire anterior end is composed of a mouth armed 

 with great teeth-like bristles, indicating a type of 

 life and diet far different from that of the quiet, 

 plant-eating copepods. 



Many of the day-time animals which called the 

 surface of the ocean home, were ultramarine above 

 and silvery white beneath, stained thus with the 



