76 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



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-butterflies 

 (delicately built sea-slugs on which whalebone 

 whales largely feed), hundreds of kinds of 

 small crustaceans, numerous worms like the 

 transparent arrow called Sagitta, complicated 

 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 better 

 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 



