OCEANOGRAPHY, BIONOMICS, AND AQUICULTURE. 445 



times on the mud, and from there spread upward into shallower waters, 

 outward on to the surface, and, a good deal later, downward to the 

 abysses by means of the cold Polar waters. The late Professor Moseley 

 considered the pelagic, or surface life of the ocean, to be the primitive 

 life from which all the others have been derived. Prof. W. K. Brooks 

 (The Genus Salpa, 1893, p. 156, etc.) considers that there was a primitive 

 pelagic fauna, consisting of the simplest microscopic plants and animals, 

 and "that pelagic life was abundant for a long period during which the 

 bottom was uninhabited." 



I, on the other hand, for the reasons given fully above, consider that 

 the Laminarian zone close to low-water mark is at present the richest 

 in life, that it probably has been so in the past, and that if one has to 

 express a more definite opinion as to where, in Pre-Cambrian times, life 

 in its simplest forms first appeared, I see no reason why any other zone 

 should be considered as having a better claim than what is now the 

 Laminarian to this distinction. It is there, at present, at any rate, in 

 the upper edge of the Laminarian zone, at the point of junction of sea, 

 land, and air, where there is a profusion of food, where the materials 

 brought down by streams or worn away from the land are first depos- 

 ited, where the animals are able to receive the greatest amount of light 

 and heat, oxygen and food, without being exposed periodically to the 

 air, rain, frost, sun, and other adverse conditions of the Littoral zone. 

 It is there that life — it seems to me — is most abundant, growth most 

 active, competition most severe. It is there, probably, that the sur- 

 rounding conditions are most favorable to animal life; and, therefore, 

 it seems likely that it is from this region that, as the result of over- 

 crowding, migrations have taken place downward to the abysses, out- 

 ward on the surface, and upward on to the shore. Finally, it is in 

 this Laminarian zone, probably, that under the stress of competition 

 between individuals and between allied species evolution of new forms 

 by means of natural selection has been most active. Here, at any 

 rate, we find, along with some of the most primitive of animals, some 

 of the most remarkably modified forms, and some of the most curious 

 cases of minute adaptation to environment. This brings us to the 

 subject of 



BIONOMICS, 



which deals with the habits and variations of animals, their modifica- 

 tions, and the relations of these modifications to the surrounding 

 conditions of existence. 



It is remarkable that the great impetus given by Darwin's work to 

 biological investigation has been chiefly directed to problems of struc- 

 ture and development, and not so much to bionomics until lately. 

 Variations amongst animals in a state of nature is, however, at last 

 beginning to receive the attention it deserves. Bateson has collected 

 together, and classified in a most useful book of reference, the numer- 

 ous scattered observations on variation made by many investigators, 



