THE OLDER STAGES 137 



investigation of the many and complex problems involved should not go ahead, for the latent resources 

 of the sea, as Schaefer and Revelle (1959) have called them, 'will almost certainly become important 

 food resources in the future ', as technology improves. 



The krill population may be regarded as an open biological system in which the incoming energy 

 represented by recruitment and growth is balanced by the outflowing energy represented at present 

 by its losses from natural causes (Bertalanffy, 1950). When the ultimate assault of man is included in 

 this equation it will have to be directed wisely, the mathematical models of exploited fish populations 

 of Beverton and Holt (1956) having shown that a truly rational exploitation of a fish resource requires 

 in the end ' a high degree of co-operation between fishing units and the adoption of a conscious and 

 balanced fishing attack ; in other words man's predation must become social rather than individual ', 

 and he must be prepared, they add, to seek a full understanding not only of the characteristics of the 

 populations as prey 'but of his own behaviour as predator'. Zenkevich (1957) has uttered the same 

 warning note. 'You know', he said at a recent UNESCO symposium, 'that today we mainly make 

 use of fish, but tomorrow we shall utilize other plant and animal raw stuff of the ocean. We must be 

 prepared for this, but prepared like rational owners. Sea fishery must, as far as possible, be rationally 

 conducted. . .'. 



The ecological phenomenon presented by the southern krill is perhaps without parallel among 

 euphausians, if not indeed among plankton animals as a whole. It is clear, however, that other members 

 of the order, although less widely distributed, in their own way play equally striking, if more local, 

 roles in the economy of other seas. The swarming Nyctiphanes australis, for instance, of the 

 Australian coasts (Dakin, 1953) at once springs to mind, while in northern waters the shoals of 

 Thysanoessa inermis and Meganyctiphanes norvegica} seem to support life on a scale only surpassed 

 perhaps by the Antarctic krill. Bigelow (1926) is particularly interesting on the euphausians of the 

 Gulf of Maine, recording their swarming at the surface there and their importance as the food of 

 whales and of many fish and birds. 



Euphausiids are often extremely plentiful near the surface in the Eastport-St. Andrews region at the mouth of the 

 Bay of Fundy, where the smaller-sized herring can be seen chasing them to and fro right up to the docks, and they 

 are so conspicuous when schooling that they must have been seen and commented upon by local fishermen from the 

 first settlement of that coast. The earliest published reference to their local abundance there, or in any part of the 

 gulf, for that matter, seems to have been in 1879, when S. I. Smith (1879, p. 90) described Meganyctiphanes norvegica 

 as occurring at the surface in the Eastport region in 'swarms, filling the water for miles', and as 'usually accompanied 

 by schools of mackerel, young pollock, and other fish, and in autumn by immense flocks of gulls, the fish and smaller 

 gulls appearing to feed almost exclusively on Thysanopoda at such times'. Such occasions he recorded for April, 

 August, September and October, adding that Verrill found these shrimp swarming in myriads in the ripplings in the 

 center of the Bay of Fundy in 1869, and that they are often so abundant among the wharves at Eastport that they 

 may be caught there by the quart. Moore also wrote (1898, p. 401) that 'during the summer and fall dense bodies 

 of Thysanopoda are seen swimming about the wharves at Eastport and at other places in the vicinity, and they are 

 also extremely abundant on the ripplings at Grand Manan, which has long been famous as a herring fishery. 

 Excepting the eyes and the phosphorescent spots beneath, which are bright red, the bodies of these shrimps are 

 almost transparent, yet such is the density of the shoals in which they congregate that a distinct reddish tinge is often 

 imparted to the water. In the summer and early fall of 1895 they were especially abundant about the wharves at 

 Eastport, and on one occasion, at least, they were left at low water several inches deep over a considerable area of 

 one of the docks'. Moore believed that Thysanoessa inermis was the species chiefly concerned, but in the light of 

 subsequent observations it is probable that then, as now, it was outnumbered there by Meganyctiphanes. Our own 

 observations, with information communicated by Doctor Huntsman, show that the passage of time has seen no 

 diminution in the abundance of the latter in the Eastport-St. Andrews region in summer and early autumn. 



1 Sars (1875); Allen (1916); Bigelow (1926); Stott (1936); Ruud (1936); Einarsson (1945); Fisher and Lockley 

 (1954) et al. 



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