52 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



of the Divine Economy and Providence, in 

 furnishing such a profusion of minuter life, 

 remote from the habitations of man, for the 

 ultimate subsistence of the giant occupants of 

 the great deep ! This green sea may be con- 

 sidered as the Polar Pasture ground, where 

 whales are usually seen in greatest numbers. 

 These prodigious animals cannot derive any 

 direct subsistence from such small and all but 

 invisible particles ; but these form the food of 

 other minute creatures, which then support 

 others, till at length marine insects and medusae 

 are produced of such size as to afford, by means 

 of the whale's beautiful food- gathering appar- 

 atus, the requisite nourishment for their mighty 

 devourers * 



"The genus cancer, larger in size than the 

 medusa, appears to rank second in number and 

 importance. It presents itself under the vari- 

 ous species of the crab, and, above all, of the 

 shrimp, whose multitudes rival those of the 

 medusa, and which in all quarters feed and are 

 fed upon. So carnivorous are the propensities 



* Scoresby's Arctic Regions, vol. i., p. 179. 



