70 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



minute animals, such as the small crustaceans 

 called water-fleas, and these may be eaten by 

 fishes. The bodies of dead animals are broken 

 down by microbes, and what is not devoured 

 by other animals passes in solution into the 

 sea-water and may be absorbed again as part 

 of the food of Algae. The same is true of the 

 waste-products voided from the food-canal 

 and kidneys of animals. Nothing is ever lost; 

 all things flow. 



The naturalists at the Plymouth Biological 

 Station have shown that the abundance of 

 mackerel in the spring months depends on the 

 abundance of the minute "water-fleas" or 

 copepods in the upper waters, and this again 

 depends upon the abundance of minute Algae 

 called Diatoms and of minute animals called 

 Peridinid Infusorians, which form a great 

 part of the "stock" of the sea-soup. As the 

 multiplication of the Diatoms and Infusorians 

 in the surface waters depends mainly on the 

 amount of sunlight in the early part of the 

 year, we can see a connection between the sun- 

 niness of the spring and the supply of mack- 

 erel at Billingsgate. The whole world is run 

 on a plan of successive re-incarnations. Diatom 

 or Infusorian, first link; copepod or water- 



