76 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



small, the petrels, the sea-snakes, the herring 

 and mackerel, the flying-fishes, the squids, and 

 some of the prawn-like crustaceans. The 

 drifters may be illustrated by the sea-butter- 

 flies (delicately built sea-slugs on which 

 whalebone whales largely feed), hundreds of 

 kinds of small crustaceans, numerous worms 

 like the transparent arrow called Sagitta, com- 

 plicated colonies like the Portuguese Man-of- 

 War, and the sail-bearers (Velella), often 

 seen in the Mediterranean in beautiful fleets 

 stretching for miles. More familiar are the 

 jelly-fishes,, often borne into shallow water 

 and left stranded in thousands on the beach. 

 These two sets of animals, the swimmers 

 and the drifters, are so different that it is bet- 

 ter to study them separately. They represent, 

 so to speak, two different attitudes to life. 

 One remembers George Meredith's lines: 



"Behold the life of ease, it drifts; 

 The sharpened life commands its course. 

 She winnows, winnows roughly, sifts 

 To dip her chosen in her source. 



Contention is the vital force 



Whence pluck they brains, her prize of gifts." 



To keep our ideas clear we must understand 

 that animals may be tenants of the open sea 



