LIFE OF THE SEA 



249 



except the minute one-celled plants, the diatoms, of which 

 there are many species and an almost infinite number of 

 individuals. These furnish about the only food for the 

 animals of the open sea except that obtained by preying 

 upon each other. 



A great quantity of detached seaweed (Sargassum), 

 filled with multitudes of small marine animals and the 

 fishes which prey upon them, covers the surface of the 

 middle Atlantic, the center of the oceanic eddy. Through 

 this Columbus sailed from the 16th of September to the 

 8th of October, 1492, greatly to his own astonishment 

 and to the terror of his crew, who had never before heard 

 of these "oceanic meadows." 



The animals of the sea vary in size from the microscopic 

 globigerina, whose tiny shells blanket the beds of the 

 deeper seas, to the 

 whale, that huge giant 

 of the deep, in compari- 

 son with which the 

 largest land animals are 

 but pigmies. Although 

 monarch of all the finny 

 tribe, it is not a fish at 

 all, but a mammal which 

 became infatuated with 

 a salt-water life and so 

 through countless ages has more and more assumed the 

 finny aspect. It is obliged to rise to the surface to 

 breathe. It cares for its young like other mammals. 



Here, too, are found the jellyfish, the Portuguese man- 

 of-war (Fig. 110), some fishes, many crustaceans, a few in- 

 sects, turtles, snakes and mammals. Most of these animals 

 are lightly built and are well equipped for floating and 

 swimming. Some sea animals, like the oyster, barnacle 



A SMALL SHARK. 

 Photographed under water. 



