THE OLDER STAGES 153 



suddenly stopped because it had taken up such a quantity of ' shrimps '^ from the sea that all the 

 cocks were choked up.^ Gunther again, in 'William Scoresby', records an occasion when during 

 a rough night oflF South Georgia, with the wind almost at gale force and the sea running very high, 

 large numbers of E. superba kept coming on board for a period of 10 min. They were live krill for 

 he adds that in the darkness 'specimens were easily collected by reason of their luminescence', 

 an observation suggesting this large species is perfectly at home in a turbulent and breaking sea, 

 neither seeking, as some plankton animals are said to do (France, 1894; Schouteden, 1902), the 

 tranquillity of the deeper layers nor finding in such rough conditions what Gushing (1951) has 

 described as a 'physically uninhabitable' zone. The mounting catching power of our surface nets 

 (p. 260, Tables 51 and 52) that develops as the waves get higher provides further support for this view. 



BOOM 



fiUlOE ROPE 



Fig. 16. Lateral towing on the surface from a boom. 



A mass stranding of Nyctiphanes australis, the most abundant euphausian of the Australian coasts 

 and one that like the krill may occur on the surface by day so densely crowded that the sea is coloured 

 red, is described by Dakin and Colefax (1940) in the following illuminating passage: 

 This species occurs in our waters at times in 'mass formation'. Great shoals occur so that a bucket will function 

 for capture as well as a tow-net. At night the effect is remarkable. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary occurrences 

 of this nature was the night of September 14th, 1938, when such a shoal actually appeared within the limits of 

 Sydney Heads and so became washed up in myriads on certain beaches inside the harbour.^ Crowds of people noted 

 the luminescence. An amusing and odd effect was produced, since either the squashed Crustacea, or their secretions, 

 adhered and continued to produce light on the feet of dogs which were paddling about and then running over the 

 sandy beach of Watson's Bay at the time. 



1 Almost certainly Thysanoessa inermis which Stott (1936) describes swarming in great profusion off the Nordenskjold 

 Glacier, Spitzbergen. 



2 The filter in the evaporator intake of the diesel-electric ship ' Ob ' was similarly choked by E. superba while passing through 

 a dense swarm off Enderby Land early in 1957 (Beklemishev, 1958 c). 



^ In northern waters Moore (p. 137) records the stranding of Thysanoessa inermis in almost identical circumstances. See 

 too Webster's account (p. 41) of the stranding of E. superba at Deception Island and Wilson (1905; 19076) who reports its 

 stranding on the pack, thrown up by wavelets breaking on the floes. 



16 DM 



