THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



the babies of jelly-fish and often resemble them; vast 

 swarms of them are tiny shell fish of every conceivable 

 kind. They must not be thought of as colourless, although 

 numbers of them are transparent, for their colours range 

 right through the spectrum. Blue copepods wear orange 

 aprons, consisting of eggs. Attempts have been made to 

 represent some of the ghostly, transparent forms on white 

 paper, but against any such background they look un- 

 natural, even when the colours are perfectly reproduced. 

 Other attempts to present their complicated designs and 

 remarkable colour harmonies against dark backgrounds, 

 such as black paper, have been more successful, but even 

 the best of them look somewhat artificial and harsh and 

 far too solid. 



It is far beyond the scope of this book to give any 

 detailed description of planktonic creatures, whether 

 plants or animals. Any selection of them must necessarily 

 be very inadequate and quite unrepresentative. Investi- 

 gation of them is in its infancy, but is now making 

 progress because of the labours of numerous enthusi- 

 astic students. Among these. Dr. M. V. Lebour in Eng- 

 land is one of the few who have been able to build up a 

 number of life-histories regarding plankton which are 

 invaluable to the basic research which has already been 

 given to the creatures. But all the knowledge already 

 attained is but a drop in the ocean compared with what 

 remains to be known about these wonderful sea plants 

 and animals. 



Hilary B. Moore, Professor of Marine Biology of the 

 University of Miami, U.S.A., and one of the world's 

 leading authorities on plankton, has said : "As usual, the 

 more we study these animals the more problems they 

 present."* 



* Article on plankton in the National Geographic Alagazine, July 1952. 



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