LIFE IN THE OCEAN — CLAEK 379 



same way within them ; while many, equally uncanny and deformed, 

 live like lice sucking the blood of fishes, and others bore deep into 

 the skin of whales. 



Within the digestive tube of the fishes, whales, and sea birds live 

 certain creatures not found elsewhere, except that some have been 

 found to exist as larva? within the bodies of crustaceans. These are 

 the tapeworms, echinorhynchs, etc., which have no stomachs but ab- 

 sorb through their skin the nutritive fluids in the alimentary canals 

 of their hosts. 



In the middle of the day in the Tropics and in the height of the 

 summer in the temperate regions most animals seek the shade and 

 become more or less inactive; animal life is most in evidence early 

 in the morning and again toward evening. At sea most animals, es- 

 pecially in low* latitudes and where the sea is clear, seek the shade 

 in just the same way, retreating far below the surface to the twilight 

 zone in the daytime, reappearing at or soon after dark. 



Midway between Bermuda and St. Kitts I have watched the sea 

 for hour after hour without detecting a single living thing. But 

 on one trip we stopped to pick up a buoy that had broken away 

 from its moorings off New Orleans some years previously. Scarcely 

 had the speed begun to slacken before all sorts of creatures began 

 to appear in the shadow of the ship. A small light speck deep down 

 slowly increased in size and was finally revealed as a 15-foot shark, 

 which insisted, in spite of all discouragement on the part of the 

 sailors, in accompanying the small boat sent out to attach a line to 

 the buoy. Other smaller sharks appeared, together with the inevit- 

 able pilot fish, and a troop of those magnificiently colored fish called 

 by sailors dolphins, though in no way like true dolphins, which are 

 small fish-eating whales. When the buoy was brought up to the 

 ship the underside was seen to be festooned with growths, about 

 which played many little fishes, and on being hoisted on board many 

 kinds of animals were found among the " weeds." Almost as soon 

 as the steamer got under way again everything vanished, and the 

 sea became as deserted as before. But about a score of small sharks 

 and as many pilot fish lay on the fore deck, evidence of the prowess 

 of some of the Chinese women in the steerage. 



On the Pacific in low latitudes we found that we were most 

 successful in finding oceanic life in the daytime if we lowered our 

 tow-nets to about 600 feet beneath the surface. In this region there 

 is twilight even on the brightest day at noon, and it is at this or 

 somewhat lesser depths that the sea animals for the most part seek 

 refuge from the light. 



The animals taken in a haul 600 feet or more below the surface 

 in the daytime and in another haul in the same place taken on the 



