ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 
acter, which seems, therefore, not to be heredi- 
tary, and no explanation can be offered for it 
at the present time. Dr. Lucien Howe, the dis- 
tinguished ophthalmologist, informs us that he 
knows of no statistics to show that albino eyes 
are more subject to blindness and cataract than 
normal eyes. 
ANIMAL LIFE ON A PIECE OF SEA 
LETTUCE 
By Ina M. Mreiien 
QUATIC vegetation always harbors a cer- 
tain amount of animal life. If we remove 
a plant, or even an old dead leaf, from a 
pond, and shake it, crustaceans and young 
dragon flies, water spiders, beetles and leeches 
are likely to be thrown off, and if we scrape it 
and place the scrapings under a microscope, we 
discover them to be rich in unicellular organ- 
isms and minute and wonderful worms (kite- 
shaped rotifers, may be, with rapidly whirling 
cilia), crustaceans (blue-green, one-eyed “‘cy- 
clops,” perhaps. with handsome orange egg- 
cases), and other curious and fascinating crea- 
tures. 
The sea is ever more fertile than the pond, 
and its life is varied and marvelous, and so 
bewilderingly rich that we are urged to pro- 
found admiration for the mind of science that 
has achieved and fostered the extreme patience 
and penetration necessary to sorting and nam- 
ing, grouping and classifying, studying and de- 
scribing, so many animals of such diverse forms 
and habits of life, in order that the world at 
large may be made familiar with the “hidden 
treasures of the deep.” 
As a bit of sea-growth floats past us on the 
ocean we see only a strip of green or brown 
vegetation, and let it sail on with but a casual 
glance. Were our eyes fitted for minuter ob- 
servation, we would recognize a microcosm pass- 
ing by—a little world of life and action. 
If we snatch the plant—let us say, for ex- 
ample, a leaf of rich green sea-lettuce (Ulva) 
from the wave and deposit it in a dish containing 
sea water, we may, at leisure, take inventory 
of our booty. 
Threatening us with almost invisible but none 
the less angry baby claws, a blue crab, scarcely 
big enough to cover the nail of one’s little finger, 
scurries excitedly over the surface of the plant 
and rushes into a brown eel, another mere baby 
but three inches long. The eel glides into a 
different fold of the leaf, with that peculiar 
grace and rhythm of motion which eels, perhaps 
129 
most of all the sea’s inhabitants, 
superlative degree. 
possess in 
A killifish that had been dozing in the sea 
plant, leaps about in mad efforts to escape, 
joined, possibly, by a tiny fish of some other 
species lately seeking and finding in the floating 
vegetation a sure protection from some pursuing 
enemy. 
Small crustaceans—shrimps and_ salt-water 
cyclops somewhat larger than the fresh-water 
species-—dart wantonly over the 
while more sedate little pink anemones spread 
their soft, treacherous tentacles to capture what 
they can, and white sea-squirts repose pictur- 
esquely on the plant as if an industrious merman 
had blown them out of glass and set them there 
for ornament. One would not guess them to be 
highly organized animals that escaped being 
vertebrates only by sheer degeneration. 
vegetation, 
Here and there a Spirorbis, one of the small- 
est of the sea-worms, secretes its coiled lime- 
stone tube, while rows of dwarf hydroids, like 
microscopic anemones, adorn the edges of the 
leaf and vie in fantastic beauty with the regular 
rows of vase-shaped egg-cases that a prolific 
mud snail is gluing to the leaf. And a naked 
molluse slimes its tortuous way among numerous 
wriggling worms of various sizes, shapes and 
colors. Nothing in the world is more awe- 
inspiring than one of these baby sea-worms just 
out of the egg, especially clam worms timidly 
initiating themselves in the use of their many 
active pseudopods, (false feet), the strange 
anatomy of which they do not quite understand, 
and never will, but which they will nevertheless 
learn to manage and manipulate with agile per- 
fection. 
A very young sea-mussel, not over three- 
thirty-seconds of an inch long, already adept in 
the use of its byssus threads, clings fast to its 
moorings on the leaf, while white-and-black sea- 
spiders, all legs and about the size of a decimal 
point, crawl clumsily among numbers of dancing 
protozoa that can be seen only under magnifica- 
tion. 
We cannot yet profess familiarity with all 
the animals living on the bottom of the sea, but 
any of us may discover thus easily the forms 
that travel from time to time in the surface 
vegetation. 
Acknowledgments.—The photographs repro- 
duced in this bulletin have been furnished by 
C. H. Townsend, S. A. Callisen, Ida M. Mellen, 
Van Campen Heilner, E. R. Sanborn, Madame 
Frieda Hempel and Leonidas Westervelt. 
