THE OPEN SEA 65 



ants; deeper down 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 

 learning 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 diffi- 

 cult for us; we must content ourselves with 

 taking the " pelagic fauna," which means sim- 

 ply the animals of the surface of the sea, as 

 we find it now. But even now we are justified 

 in speaking of 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 



