NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES 



its own ; the struggle for existence is intense ; 

 the life-saving adaptations and shifts for a living 

 are endless ; " passions there, laws, pursuits, 

 tribes," as Walt Whitman said in his " World below 

 the Brine." For it is to the region of the sea- 

 meadows rather than to the deep sea, that most 

 of his vivid picture applies : 



The World below the brine, 



Forests at the bottom of the sea the branches and leaves, 



Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds the 



thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, 

 Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and 



gold the play of light through the water, 

 Dumb swimmers there among the rocks coral, gluten, 



grass, rushes and the aliment of the swimmers, 

 Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly 



crawling close to the bottom. 



This and more also will be subscribed to by all who 

 have spent a summer afternoon drifting here and 

 there over the sea-meadows, peering into the 

 crowded life below, enjoying the play of colour, 

 lifting now and again a leaf of sea-grass sometimes 

 6 feet long to discover how many smaU creatures 

 were browsing there, or raising more adventurously 

 a stone from the bottom, to see sometimes a dozen 

 different kinds of creatures living together -a little 

 balanced world in itself. " But what an endless 

 task have I on hand to count the sea's abundant 

 progeny, whose fruitful seede farre passeth those 

 on land ... so fertile be the flouds in generation, 

 so huge their numbers, and so numberlesse their 

 nation." 



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