4 The Study of Animal Life PART i 



pered penguins and Mother Carey's chickens, the marine 

 turtles and swift poisonous sea-serpents, the true fishes in 

 prolific shoals, the cuttles and other pelagic molluscs ; 

 besides hosts of armoured crustaceans, swiftly -gliding 

 worms, fleets of Portuguese Men-of-War and throbbing jelly- 

 fish, and minute forms of life as numerous in the waves as 

 motes in the sunlit air of a dusty town. 



" But what an endless worke have I in hand, 

 To count the seas abundant progeny, 

 Whose fruitful seede farre passeth those on land, 

 And also those which wonne in th' azure sky ; 

 For much more eath to tell the starres on hy, 

 Albe they endlesse seem in estimation, 

 Then to recount the seas posterity ; 

 So fertile be the flouds in generation, 

 So huge their numbers, and so numberlesse their nation." 



Realise Walt Whitman's vivid picture : 



" The World below the brine. 



Forests at the bottom of the sea the branches and leaves, 



Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds the thick 

 tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, 



Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold 

 the play of light through the water, 



Dumb swimmers there among the rocks coral, gluten, grass, 

 rushes and the aliment of the swimmers, 



Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling 

 close to the bottom : 



The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or dis- 

 porting with his flukes, 



The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea- 

 leopard, and the sting ray. 



Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes sight in those ocean depths 

 breathing that thick breathing air, as so many do." 



The sea appears to have been the cradle, if not the 

 birthplace, of the earliest forms of animal life, and some 

 have never wandered out of hearing of its lullaby. From 

 the sea, animals seem to have migrated to the shore and 

 thence to the land, but also to the great depths. Of the 

 life of the deep sea we have had certain knowledge only 



