Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1894 — Animal Life in the Gulf Stream. [ARTICLE]

Animal Life in the Gulf Stream.

The surface waters in the Gulf Stream teem with minute life of all kinds. There the young of larger animals exist, microscopic in size, and adult animals which never grow large enough to be plainly visible to the naked eye occur in immense quantities. By dragging a fine silk net behind the vessel, these minute forms are easily taken, and when placed in glass dishes millions uncounted are seen swimming backward and forward. When looked at through a microscope we see young jelly fishes, the young of barnacles, crabs and shrimps, beside the adult microscopic species, which are very abundant. The toothless whale finite in these his only food. Rushing through the water, with mouth wide open, by means of his whalebone strainers the minute forms are separated from the water. Swallowing those obtained after a short period of straining, he repeats the operation. The abundance of this kind of life can bo judged from the fact that nearly all kinds of whales exist exclusively upon these animals, most of them so small that they are not noticed on the surface. —Ralph S. Tarr, in Popular SciancQ Monthly.