In shoaler water, at
the distance of a few miles from the coast, very many kinds of
crustacea and some other animals are numerous, but only during the
night. Between latitudes 56 and 57 degrees south of Cape Horn, the
net was put astern several times; it never, however, brought up
anything besides a few of two extremely minute species of
Entomostraca. Yet whales and seals, petrels and albatross, are
exceedingly abundant throughout this part of the ocean. It has
always been a mystery to me on what the albatross, which lives far
from the shore, can subsist; I presume that, like the condor, it is
able to fast long; and that one good feast on the carcass of a
putrid whale lasts for a long time. The central and intertropical
parts of the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, and Radiata,
and with their devourers the flying-fish, and again with their
devourers the bonitos and albicores; I presume that the numerous
lower pelagic animals feed on the Infusoria, which are now known,
from the researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in the open ocean: but
on what, in the clear blue water, do these Infusoria subsist?
While sailing a little south of the Plata on one very dark night,
the sea presented a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle.
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