THE TEEMING LIFE OF THE WATERS 



creatures differing widely from one another both as 

 regards construction and size. All float in the im- 

 mensity of the waters. All are suspended in those 

 waters, there remain suspended without remission and 

 without end, peopling the waters from the surface to 

 the very bottom. 



This bottom is inhabited. Upon it settle and 

 attach themselves different sorts of animals, from near 

 the shore to the very limit of the depths to which 

 light can descend, the light essential for the function 

 of the chlorophyll, together with a host of seaweeds 

 and other marine plants. Among these animals, some 

 settle only for a while and then begin moving again, 

 going and coming, crawling or swimming. Others, 

 more extraordinary, attach themselves to the bottom 

 and fix themselves there definitely, manifesting their 

 animal nature only by contractions and extensions of 

 their limbs. Such are the corals, certain worms, many 

 molluscs with a double shell, and several others. The 

 rocks, up to the limits reached by the highest tides, 

 sandy beaches, the coast-line generally, the huge muddy 

 bottoms, support in this way a host of settled inhabit- 

 ants, often so abundant and close together that they 

 cover everything and give the impression of vast 

 profusion. Near the shore we may see rocks covered 

 with a compact carpet of mussels, packed so close 

 that there is not the slightest space between them. 

 At low tide, if we lift the pebbles and delve beneath 

 the rocks, we find masses of other creatures living in 

 groups, forming a heterogeneous, but very much alive, 

 association of species of many different kinds. This 

 abundance is interesting to the naturalist, for in it he 

 finds, as though in a garnered heap, the materials he 

 uses for his studies: it strikes the ordinary casual 

 observer by its contrast with the much more scanty 

 population of the neighbouring land. In its own way 

 it expresses the marvellous number of actualities of 

 life which the world of waters contains. 



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