70 HAECKEL 



glass containing sea-water. "I shall never," says 

 Haeckel, " forget the astonishment with which I 

 gazed for the first time on the swarm of transparent 

 marine animals that Miiller emptied out of his fine 

 net into the glass vessel ; the beautiful medley of 

 graceful medusae and iridescent ctenophores, arrow- 

 like sagittas and serpent-shaped tomopteris, the 

 masses of copepods and schizopods, and the marine 

 larvae of worms and echinoderms." Miiller called 

 these very fine and generally transparent creatures, 

 of whose existence no one hitherto had had any 

 idea, " pelagic sweepings" (from pelagos, the sea). 

 More recently the word " fjancton " (swimming 

 matter) has been substituted for his phrase. As 

 we now send whole expeditions over the seas to 

 study " pancton," the word has found its way into 

 ordinary literature. The regular anglers who were 

 then in Heligoland must have looked on this subtle 

 work with a butterfly net as a sort of pleasant 

 joke born from the professional brain. The young 

 student must have made an impression on them 

 with his vigour, though he had not yet turned 

 himself into a marine mammal, living half in the 

 water for days together. They called him a " sea- 

 devil." What pleased the master most in him 

 was the talent he already showed of quickly 

 sketching the tiny, perishable creature from the 

 surface of the sea while it was fresh. Haeckel had 

 been passionately fond of drawing from his early 

 years. Now the old bent agreed with the new zeal 

 for zoology. " You will be able to do a great deal," 

 Miiller said to him. "And when once you are 



