THE OPEN SEA 65 



where the light is less abundant there are more 

 animals than plants ; deeper still there are 

 animals only. 



If the shore area is the Great School of life, 

 where animals have learned and are still learn- 

 ing many lessons, the open sea may be looked 

 on as the cradle of life. There are many 

 authorities who believe that it was there that 

 life had its beginnings, far back in the dim past. 

 " There can be little doubt," writes one, "that 

 the pelagic fauna antedated all the faunas of 

 the globe, and that from it, through a long 

 process of modification and adaptation, have 

 been derived the faunas of the shore, the 

 abyssal depths, the land surface, and the fresh 

 waters." 



But this question of beginnings is too 

 difficult for us ; we must content ourselves with 

 taking the "pelagic fauna," which means simply 

 the animals of the surface of the sea, as we 

 find it now. But even now we are justified in 

 speaking or the open sea as the cradle of life, 

 for many of the animals which, in their adult 

 state, live amid the turmoil and struggle of the 

 shore, spend their delicate youth in the easier 

 conditions of the open sea. The eggs and 

 larvae of some fishes, too, whose home is on 

 5 



