ANIMAL DEPENDENCE ON WEATHER 57 



previous hot summers, when no cold rains were chilling the 

 surface of the sea and keeping down its temperature. 

 For it is on the surface of the sea that the untold 

 millions of the eggs of most of the food-fish float, 

 and it is there, too, that the minute creatures swim 

 and breed, and lay their invisible eggs on which the 

 fry of the sea-fish feed. Thus rain and cold may be 

 as fatal to the life of the ocean as they are to life 

 on the dry land. They chill the surface water, on 

 which float the embryos both of fish and the food 

 which ought to support them. Wet weather spoils 

 even the harvest of the sea. 



