CRUISES OF THE "MICHAEL SARS 



65 



metres, and a good deal of harm was also done to the others. 

 All the same we managed to get some samples of interesting 

 deep-sea forms, though such catches were of a more or less 

 fortuitous nature. 



Off Lisbon the sea became calm, and we took hydrographical 

 observations at Station 17, obtaining water-samples from many 

 depths. Here, 

 out on the edge 

 of the continental 

 slope, and in the 

 Spanish Bay, the 

 weather was 

 beautifully warm, 

 and the sun shone 

 brightly. We 

 now met with 

 some extremely 

 interesting forms 

 of animal life. 

 Numerous dol- 

 phins swam 

 round our bows, 

 and when stand- 

 ing in the fore 

 part of the ship 

 we saw thousands 

 of small pelagic 

 crabs {Poly bins ; 

 see Fig. 4$), 

 sometimes as 

 many as fifty of 

 them in three 

 minutes. We 

 also sighted a 

 turde. 



While steam- 

 ing along Gran studied the plankton filtered from water dan's inves- 

 obtained by a pump, and found in every sample more than [IfJ'pfank^on. 

 forty species of diatoms and peridinii, whereas to the west of 

 Ireland we had come across a diatom-plankton, rich in indi- 

 viduals but very poor in species, consisting of the ordinary 

 North European coast diatoms. This showed that we had now 

 reached a southern and warmer marine region, with a totally 



F 



Fig. 44. — Bargaini 



