Uj The Outline of Science 



rising and sinking according to the surrounding conditions. 

 Many of them are luminescent, and many of them are very incon- 

 spicuous in the water owing to their transparency or their bluish 

 colour. In both cases the significance is obscure. 



Hunger and Love 



Hunger is often very much in evidence in the open sea, 

 especially in areas where the Plankton is poor. For there is great 

 diversity in this respect, most of the Mediterranean, for instance, 

 having a scanty Plankton as compared with the North Sea. In 

 the South Pacific, west of Patagonia, there is said to be an 

 immense "sea desert" where there is little Plankton, and therefore 

 little in the way of fishes. The success of fisheries in the North, 

 e.g. on the Atlantic cod-banks, is due to the richness of the float- 

 ing sea-meadows and the abundance of the smaller constituents 

 of the animal Plankton. 



Hunger is plain enough when the Baleen Whale rushes 

 through the water with open jaws, engulfing in the huge cavern 

 of its mouth, where the pendent whalebone plates form a huge 

 sieve, incalculable millions of small fry. 



But there is love as well as hunger in the open sea. The 

 maternal care exhibited by the whale reaches a very high level, 

 and the delicate shell of the female Paper Nautilus or Argonaut, 

 in which the eggs and the young ones are sheltered, may well be 

 described as "the most beautiful cradle in the world." 



Besides the permanent inhabitants of the open sea, there are 

 the larval stages of many shore-animals which are there only for 

 a short time. For there is an interesting give and take between 

 the shore-haunt and the open sea. From the shore come nutritive 

 contributions and minute organisms which multiply quickly in 

 the open waters. But not less important is the fact that the open 

 waters afford a safe cradle or nursery for many a delicate larva, 

 e.g. of crab and starfish, acorn-shell and sea-urchin, which could 

 not survive for a day in the rough-and-tumble conditions of the 



