70 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 
minute animals, such as the small crustaceans 
called water-fleas, and these may be eaten by 
fishes. ‘The bodies of dead animals are broken 
down by microbes, and what is not devoured 
by other animals passes in solution into the 
sea-water and may be absorbed again as part 
of the food of Algw. The same is true of the 
waste-products voided from the food-canal 
and kidneys of animals. Nothing is ever lost; 
all things flow. 
The naturalists at the Plymouth Biological 
Station have shown that the abundance of 
mackerel in the spring months depends on the 
abundance of the minute “ water-fleas” or 
copepods in the upper waters, and this again 
depends upon the abundance of minute Alge 
called Diatoms and of minute animals called 
Peridinid Infusorians, which form a great 
part of the “stock” of the sea-soup. As the 
multiplication of the Diatoms and Infusorians 
in the surface waters depends mainly on the 
amount of sunlight in the early part of the 
year, we can see a connection between the sun- 
niness of the spring and the supply of mack- 
erel at Billingsgate. The whole world is run 
ona plan of successive re-incarnations. Diatom 
or Infusorian, first link; copepod or water- 
