162 ATLANTIC OCEAN. [chap, viii, 



the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These claws are 

 very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed back- 

 wards : their curved extremities are flattened, and on this part 

 five most minute cups are placed which seem to act in the same 

 manner as the suckers on the arms of the cuttle-fish. As the 

 animal lives in the open sea, and probably wants a place of rest, 

 I suppose this beautiful and most anomalous structure is adapted 

 to take hold of floating marine animals. 



In deep water, far from the land, the number of living crea- 

 tures is extremely small : south of the latitude 35°, I never suc- 

 ceeded in catching anything besides some beroe, and a few species 

 of minute entomostracous Crustacea. In shoaler water, at the 

 distance of a few miles from the coast, very many kinds of Crus- 

 tacea and some other animals are numerous, but only during the 

 night. Between latitudes 56° and 57° south of Cape Horn, the 

 net was put astern several times ; it never, however, brought up 

 anything besides a few of two extremely minute species of Ento- 

 mostraca. Yet whales and seals, petrels and albatross, are ex- 

 ceedingly abundant throughout this part of the ocean. It ha^ 

 always been a mystery to me on what the albatross, which lives 

 far from the shore, can subsist ; I presume that, like the condor, 

 it is able to fast long ; and that one good feast on the carcass 

 of a putrid whale lasts for a long time. The central and inter- 

 tropical parts of the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, 

 and Radiata, and with their devourers the flying-fish, and again 

 with their devourers the bonitos and albicores ; I presume that 

 the numerous lower pelagic animals feed on the Infusoria, which 

 are now known, from the researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in 

 the open ocean : but on what, in the clear blue water, do these 

 Infusoria subsist ? 



While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark 

 night, the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spec- 

 tacle. There was a fresh breeze, and every part of the sur- 

 face, which during the day is seen as foam, now glowed with 

 a pale light. The vessel drove before her bows two billows 

 of liquid phosphorus, and in her wake she was followed by a 

 milky train. As far as the eye reached, the crest of every 

 wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon, from the re- 

 flected glare of these livid flames, was not so utterly obscure 

 as over the vault of the heavens. 



