Under the Sea Wind (23 page)

LONGSPUR, LAPLAND. A bird of the finch and sparrow tribe, about the size of a song sparrow. In winter, longspurs are occasionally to be seen in northern United States and southern Canada, but summer finds them on nesting grounds beyond the tree line in northern Canada and in Greenland and scattered Arctic islands. On the western plains they are described as occurring in “long straggling flocks, all singing together.”

LOOKDOWN FISH. A very curious fish common from Chesapeake Bay southward. Its body is high and compressed from side to side, and is a beautiful silvery color with opalescent lights. The long, straight profile and high “forehead” give a distinct impression that the fish is looking down its nose.

MARSH SAMPHIRE (s
ă
m'-f
Ä«
r). The marsh samphire or glasswort is a plant of the salt marshes that turns a vivid red in autumn, forming patches of brilliant color.

MARSH TREADER. A long and slender-bodied water insect that walks about deliberately over the leaves of water lilies or on the surface film, watching for the mosquito larvae, water boatmen, and small crustaceans on which it preys.

MAY FLY. The greater part of the life of a May fly is spent in the immature stage which lives in clean, fresh water as long as three years, burrowing into banks and under stones or running about over the bottom. At maturity it emerges, mates, lays its eggs, and dies, all within one or two days. The life of the adult May fly has become a symbol of a brief and ephemeral existence.

MEDUSA. The familiar jellyfish in the shape of a bell, umbrella, or disc is known as a medusa. Some jellyfishes have alternating medusa and hydroid stages in their life history. (See hydroid.)

MENHADEN (m
ĕ
n-h
ā
'-d'n). A schooling fish closely related to shad and herring, found from Nova Scotia to Brazil. It is caught in large quantities for the preparation of oil, meals for stock feeding, and fertilizer, but is not a food fish. It has been described as the prey of every larger predacious animal that swims, including whales, porpoises, tuna, swordfish, pollock, and cod.

MERGANSER (m
ē
r-g
ă
n'-s
ē
r). Mergansers are fish-eating ducks that are expert divers and underwater swimmers. The bills are equipped with sharp, toothlike points which are excellently adapted for catching and holding slippery prey.

MNEMIOPSIS (n
ē
-m
Ä­
-
ǒ
p'-s
ē
s). This ctenophore reaches a length of four inches and occurs in swarms from Long Island to the Carolinas. It is glitteringly transparent and very phosphorescent.

MOON JELLY. (See Aurelia.)

NEREIS (n
ē
r'-
ē
-
Ä­
s). An active and graceful creature to watch, Nereis is a marine worm that may be from two or three to twelve inches long, depending on the species. It is found under stones and among seaweed in shallow water, and at times swims at the surface. The usual color is bronze, with a beautiful iridescent sheen. Its strong, horny jaws equip it for its life as an active predator.

NOCTILUCA (n
ǒ
k'-t
Ä­
-l
Å«
'-kå). This single-celled animal (about 3/100 of an inch in diameter) is one of the principal light producers of the sea, at times making large areas glow with an intense phosphorescent light. By day, floating swarms of Noctiluca may tinge the sea with red.

OARWEED. A brown seaweed of the genus Laminaria, all of which are large, with broad, leathery fronds. The larger specimens grow in deep water but often are torn up and washed ashore. Other common names for members of the group are “devil's apron,” “sole leather,” and “kelp.” These algae are among the largest plants known. A related Pacific Coast species may be several hundred feet long.

OLD SQUAW. A sea duck noted for its restless and lively disposition, its noisiness, and its disregard of stormy winter weather. It breeds on the Arctic Coast and winters south to the Chesapeake Bay and the coast of North Carolina. The long tail feathers of the male distinguish it at once from any other duck.

ORCA (ôr'-kå). The orca, or killer whale, is a member of the dolphin family, but is easily distinguished from its relatives by the very high fin on its back. Packs of orcas travel rapidly at the surface of the sea, attacking whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, and large fishes. They are exceedingly strong and bold. Even large whales appear to be paralyzed with fear at their approach.

OTTER TRAWL. An otter trawl is a large cone-shaped bag of netting which is towed along the bottom. The average net is about 120 feet long, and 100 feet wide at the mouth. During the towing, the mouth opens to a height of about fifteen feet, being held open by two heavy oak doors, so adjusted that their resistance to the water makes them pull away from each other. The doors, in turn, are attached by long towing lines to the vessel.

PANDION (p
ă
n-d
Ä«
'-
ǒ
n). The scientific name of the osprey.

PETREL, WILSON'S (p
ĕ
t'-r
ĕ
l). These little birds, often called Mother Carey's chickens, visit the coast of the United States during the summer, and in winter return to their nesting grounds on islands off the tip of South America, some within the Antarctic Circle. They are familiar to many as the swallow-like birds that follow in the wake of vessels, apparently dancing on the surface of the water.

PHALAROPE (f
ă
l'-Ã¥-r
ō
p). A small bird, between a sparrow and a robin in size. Although it belongs to the shore-bird tribe, its winter range makes it a bird of the open ocean. During migration phalaropes are to be found off our coast in great numbers, but they continue southward, probably well beyond the Equator. They are expert swimmers and feed on plankton when they are at sea. They are said sometimes to alight on the backs of whales to pick off attached sea lice.

PLANKTON. Derived from a Greek word that means “wanderers,” the term plankton is applied collectively to all the minute plants and animals that live at or near the surface of oceans or lakes. Some members of the plankton are wholly passive and drift to and fro with the currents; others are able to swim about actively in search of food. All, however, are subject to the stronger movements of the surface waters. Many sea creatures are temporary members of the plankton during infancy. This is true of most fishes and of bottom-living clams, starfish, crabs, and many other animals.

PLEUROBRACHIA (ploor'-
ō
-br
a
'-k
Ä­
-å). This is a small ctenophore—about half an inch to an inch long—with very long tentacles which may be white or rose-colored. It destroys large numbers of young fish wherever it is abundant.

PLOVER (pl
Å­
'v
ē
r). Plovers are shore birds that do not, as a rule, run at the edge of the surf as sandpipers do, but remain higher up on the beach. Among the most familiar kinds are the killdeer and ring-neck plovers. As further distinguished from sandpipers, they run about with heads up, then probe suddenly as robins do, instead of constantly probing and dabbing. Plovers nest in Canada and the Arctic (a few species in the United States) and winter as far south as Chile and Argentina.

PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR. Many people have seen the beautiful blue float of this creature drifting at the surface, especially in tropical waters or in the Gulf Stream. This float acts as an air vessel or sail, and has hanging tentacles that may stretch to a length of forty to fifty feet for anchorage. The Portuguese man-of-war belongs to the same general group as jellyfish and is considered perhaps the most dangerous member of the group, for its sting can cause serious illness or even death.

POUND NET. A sort of underwater maze formed of netting attached to stakes driven into the bottom. The opening is so placed that the usual paths of the fish take them into it, and after they have passed through several compartments of the pound it is very difficult to find their way out again. In the last compartment—the “pot” or “crib”—there is also a floor of netting.

PRAWN. A shrimp. The two names often are used interchangeably, or “prawn” may be applied to larger specimens, and “shrimp” to smaller.

PTARMIGAN (tär'-m
Ä­
-g
ă
n). The ptarmigan is a grouselike bird of the Arctic tundras of both the eastern and western hemispheres. In winter, when snow covers the tundra's food supplies, it migrates in immense flocks into protected river valleys of the interior. Occasional specimens have been seen in winter in Maine, New York, and other northern states.

PTEROPOD (t
ǒ
r'-
ō
-p
ǒ
d). A kind of mollusk closely related to the common snail, but bearing little resemblance in appearance or habit to that prosaic creature. Pteropods live in the open waters of the sea, where they swim gracefully through the upper layers. Some have shells of paper thinness; others are without shells and beautifully colored. Sometimes they occur locally in enormous numbers, and are eaten in large quantities by whales.

PURSE SEINE. A purse seine is a net of the encircling type, used in deep water to capture fish that school at the surface. Fish must be visible to be caught in a purse seine—either as dark patches on the water in daylight, or by the phosphorescent glow they stir up on dark nights. The net is dropped into the water in such a way that it hangs in a vertical wall in the shape of a circle, in the center of which is the school of fish. The net is then “pursed” or shirred together by drawing in the lines run through its lower border. The next operation is to take in the slack of the net, concentrate the fish in the “bunt,” or section where the twine is strongest, and bail them out with a kind of dip net.

RADIOLARIA (r
ā
'-d
Ä­
-
ō
-l
a
'-r
Ä­
-Ã¥). Radiolaria are one-celled animals that live only in the sea and are sometimes large enough to be seen with the unaided eye. Usually they are encased in a skeleton of silica which is exquisitely constructed like a star or a snowflake, with the living substance streaming out through per- forations in the skeleton in long, raylike strands. Like the For-aminifera (q.v.) their skeletons sink to the bottom and occur in enormous numbers in marine deposits.

RED CLAY. A bottom deposit characteristic of the great depths of the ocean (over three miles deep), which carpets a larger area than any other type of deposit. Its basis is hydrated silicate of alumina, and it contains very few organic remains because of the depth at which it lies.

ROUND-MOUTHED FISH. An oceanic fish that lives at mid-depths and possesses rows of phosphorescent organs with black rims and silver centers. The fish itself may be pale gray to black, depending on the depth at which it lives. (The deeper and darker the water, the darker the fish.) The mouth is extremely large and round when opened; hence the common name.

RYNCHOPS (r
Ä­
ng'-k
ǒ
ps). The scientific name of the black skimmer.

SALPA. Salpae or salps are transparent, barrel-shaped animals found in the sea. A single individual is an inch or more long, and many individuals may live together in colonies or chains. This is one of the creatures that show the beginnings of the stiffening rod that is perfected as the backbone in the vertebrates; but it is probably a side branch in the evolutionary tree, which did not lead directly to the development of vertebrates.

SAND BUG. Sand bugs are common on beaches from Cape Cod to Florida, where they live in great colonies between the tide lines. When the sand looks strongly pitted after a wave has washed over it, investigation will usually show that there are sand bugs scrambling in the film of water. They are covered with an oval shell, under which the tail or abdomen is bent forward for protection. They are distant cousins of the hermit crab, which resorts to a different device to protect its thin-skinned abdomen (see hermit crab), and are sometimes called “hippa crabs” from their scientific name, Hippa talpoida.

SAND DOLLAR. If all marine animals were as conveniently fashioned as the sand dollar, their identification would be a simple matter. The round, flattened shape of the test or shell accounts at once for its common name, and the star-shaped figure beautifully etched on the shell proclaims its relationship to the starfish. Usually the sand dollar lives on bottoms a little distance from the shore, but it is often washed up on beaches, where its shells are reasonably common objects. In life, the shell is covered by soft, silky spines.

SAND EEL. (See launce.)

SANDERLING. Sanderlings are fairly large sandpipers and are among the characteristic birds of the shore line. They make one of the longest of bird migrations, nesting within the Arctic Circle and wintering as far south as Patagonia.

SAND FLEA. These small crustaceans are important scavengers of the beaches, promptly devouring dead fishes and all kinds of organic refuse. Turn over a heap of damp seaweed and dozens of beach fleas, usually less than half an inch long, will spring out with great agility. Some forms live in shallow water; others in wet sand or seaweed.

SCALLOP. The empty shells of scallops are common objects on both east and west coasts. The shells are fan-shaped, with strong radial ridges running from the base of the fan, which also sends out laterally projecting wings in many species. The scallop is an edible mollusk like the oyster and the clam, but only the large, strong muscle that opens and closes the shells is eaten. Only this part of the scallop is seen in markets. Scallops are by no means sedentary shellfish, but swim through the water with an erratic, darting motion, achieved by rapidly opening and closing the shells.

SCOMBER (sk
ǒ
m'-b
ē
r). The scientific name of the mackerel.