136 RESPIRATORY EXCHANGE OF ANIMALS AND MAN 



blooded marine animals with the object of studying the relation be- 

 tween size and oxygen absorption. He found in most cases, but not 

 in all, that the smaller individuals had a relatively larger metabolism, 

 but ascribes this to their greater activity and to the fact that they were 

 generally immature and growing. Vernon [1896] made experiments 

 on several pelagic animals. His main object was to study the in- 

 fluence of temperature, and in order to utilize his material for de- 

 termining the influence of size he had to reduce all the observations 

 to a definite temperature (16). The factors used for the reduction 

 are admittedly " very uncertain " and the results cannot be accepted 

 as conclusive, the more so as standard conditions could not be main- 

 tained. The following table shows the chief results obtained by 

 Vernon. The figures for the oxygen absorption per unit surface 1 

 have been added by the writer : 



TABLE XXXVII. 



In three out of the four series of experiments there is a very 

 distinct decrease in oxygen absorption per kg. with increasing weight 

 of the animal, but in Carmarina the oxygen absorption per kg. ap- 



1 A simple calculation shows that figures given per unit weight can be reduced to 

 arbitrary " surface" units by multiplication with 4/Weight. 



