n6 THE SEAS 



importance in the animal plankton is a group of crustacean 

 organisms known as " copepods " or " oar-feet." They are 

 all small, the largest being under half an inch in length. 

 While there are very many species included in the group 

 of copepods there is one that stands out far before all others 

 in numbers and in importance in the chain of food organisms 

 that links the fishes with the drifting plants. This little 

 animal is unfortunately unknown to most people, because 

 it can only be caught with the aid of a tow-net, and when 

 captured is so small that it is regarded as insignificant. 

 But if ever an animal merited attention it is the small 

 copepod which goes by the Latin name of Calanus fin- 

 marchicus (Plate 45). It is unfortunate that it has no real 

 popular name of its own ; but we shall call it in these 

 pages " Calanus " for short, in the hope that some day 

 Calanus will be just such a common every-day expression 

 as shrimp, crab, or prawn. 



Calanus is an inhabitant of the cold northern waters, 

 where it forms one of the chief items of food of that most 

 important of all food fish, the herring, and is even sufficiently 

 abundant to aid in the building up of the enormous bodies 

 of two of the Atlantic species of whales, one of which has 

 been described as having been seen " in still weather, 

 skimming on the surface of the water to take in a sort of 

 reddish spawn or brett, as some call it, that at times will 

 lie on the top of the water for a mile together." The spawn 

 or brett is, of course, the little copepod, Calanus, which 

 occurs at times in such swarms as to colour the water, 

 whence it has acquired the name from fishermen of " red 

 feed." It will give you some idea of the numbers of these 

 little creatures if two examples are given of exceptionally 

 heavy catches. In the Gulf of Maine, by towing a conical 

 shaped net with a circular opening of one metre diameter 

 behind the boat for fifteen minutes, over 2,500,000 Calanus 



