Sargassum

“ The plants of which these vast floating meadows are composed belong for the most part to the species Sargassum bacciferum—the Berry-bearing Gulf-weed—which, unlike most other seaweeds, floats freely in the water, and is seldom or never found growing upon stones or rocks. ”

“ Now, as Sargassum natans has been found fixed by a discoid base or root, in the same manner as the other species of the genus, and as according to Meyen the Gulf-weed has been found in fructification, the legitimate conclusion from his statements seems to be, that this plant is merely modified by the peculiar circumstances in which it has so long been placed. I am not, however, disposed to adopt Dr. ”

“ To this genus also belongs the "Marbled Angler" (A. marmoratus) , carried about in mid ocean among the Sargassum weed, to rest on which, from its peculiar arm-like pectoral fins, it is specially fitted; there it makes its wonderful nest of silk-like fibres, probably secreted by the parent as in the Sticklebacks, with large bundles of eggs hanging like grape clusters. [757] The deep-sea Chaunax inflates its abdomen like Tetrodon.
Fam. 4. Gigantactinidae.—Mouth inferior, snout produced into a long tentacle directed forwards, and bearing a luminous organ. Body covered with small spines. ”

“ Along [17] the coast of Central America the sargasso weed grows, clinging, as is the way with seaweeds, to coral and rock and shell, and flowering and fruiting after its lowly fashion. The berry-like bladders with which the stems are strung, are filled with gas and enable the plants to maintain their position regardless of the state of the tide. Vast quantities are torn away by the waves and drift out to sea and these stray masses are what we see on every trip south, and which, caught in the great mid-ocean eddy, form the so-called Sargasso Sea. ”

“ The Sargasso weed is a genus by itself, which, thrust away to the south by the mighty ocean currents, lies in a vast central pool, a great eddy between the Gulf Stream and the Equatorial current; and here it revolves. It is ocean born, and long ages have passed since it lost its habit of growing on the rocky sea-bottom. Forever floating it feeds among its branches whole families of crabs, cuttle-fish and mollusks, which like the plant itself, are found in no other seas. ”

“ But the sargasso itself is a curious instance of the fashion in which one form so often mimics another of a quite different family. When fresh out of the water it resembles not a sea-weed so much as a sprig of some willow-leaved shrub, burdened with yellow berries, large and small; for every broken bit of it seems growing, and throwing out ever new berries and leaves—or what, for want of a better word, must be called leaves in a sea-weed. ”

“ They were, however, accepted by Réaumur and by Bonnet, and generally held until the time of Herold in 1815, and lingered on for some years after. The rather famous theory of incasement (“emboîtement”) propounded by Swammerdam was that the form of the larva, pupa, and imago preëxisted in the egg, and even in the ovary; and that the insects in these stages were distinct animals, contained one inside the other, like a nest of boxes, or a series of envelopes one within the other, or, to use his own words: “Animal in animali, seu papilio intra erucam reconditus.” ”

“ After all, we got little of the sargasso. Only in a sailing ship and in calms or light breezes can its treasures be explored. Twelve knots an hour is a pace sufficient to tear off the weed, as it is hauled alongside, all living things which are not rooted to it. We got, therefore, no crustacea; neither did we get a single specimen of the calamaries, which may be described as cuttle-fish carrying hooks on their arms as well as suckers, the lingering descendants of a most ancient form, which existed as far back as the era of the shallow oolitic seas, x or y thousand years ago. ”

“ A very few, however, are found out upon the ocean, where the tiny creatures row themselves cheerfully along. It is thought that they attach their eggs to the floating saragassum seaweed. If only we knew the whole life of one of these ocean water striders and all the strange sights it must see, a fairy story indeed would be unfolded to us. ”

“ In a few days this new addition to the Sargasson cuisine made me the most popular commander in all the community.
But one doesn’t have to go to the Seaweed Sea to learn that if you touch a man’s stomach you win his heart. [Pg 130]
CHAPTER XXI. I BECOME A SARGASSON.
Soon after the events narrated in the previous chapter I was busy at noonday taking an observation as to our exact latitude and longitude, when Fidette came running to me with the astonishing announcement that a large galley was coming down the Grand Canal, making straight for the Happy Shark. ”

“ When they have attained sufficient growth and strength, they emerge, after which they occasionally take refuge in the same receptable on the appearance of any danger, and are carried about by the parent. This is the practice with most of the Opossum tribe; but there are two species which have no ventral pouch for the reception of their young, but a kind of depression or furrow in its stead. ”

“ The weed along the coast is honest growth, with promise of permanence. The great floating Sargasso Sea is permanent only in appearance, and when finally the big masses drift, with all their lesser, attendant freight into the gulf stream, then life becomes a sham. There can be no more fruiting or sustained development of gas-filled berries. No eggs of fish or crabs will hatch, no new generation of sea-horses or mollusks appear among the stems. Bravely the fronds float along, day by day the hundred little lives breathe and feed and cling to their drifting home. ”

“ The amia, tunny, and labrax generally eat flesh, though they also eat sea-weed. The sargus feeds after the trigla when the last has buried itself in the mud and departed, for it has the power of burying itself, then the sargus comes and feeds and prevents all those that are weaker than itself from approaching. The fish called scarus is the only one which appears to ruminate like quadrupeds. Other fish appear to hunt the smaller ones with their mouths towards them, in this way they naturally swim ”

“ Then he gently glides into the shallow, “scatters the food full shower” among the sargi hot on their amorous mission and, well! for the number that were slain by “The Sturdy Rod his latent Hand extends” I refer you to the fourth book of the Halieutica!
Ichthyologists declare that the male sargus is very uxorious, and has at least one hundred wives always in close-herded attendance on him. As [Pg 242] the words “unhappy lovers” indicate that the sargi were present not a few, these multiplied by one hundred must have yielded quite a decent creel. ”

“ Those that feigned death usually maintained the deception for not more than two or three minutes after a person had moved away out of sight. The opossum first raised its head and sniffed, listened, and looked about cautiously for a short time, with body and limbs still relaxed in the feigning posture. ”

“ On a natural area, the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation, in Douglas County, northeastern Kansas, the population of opossums was studied, chiefly by live-trapping, in the fall-winter-spring seasons of 1949-50, 1950-51 and 1951-52. The study area provided a varied habitat of elm-oak-hickory woodland, pastureland, and fallow fields. Opossums use all parts of it, but concentrate their activities in the woodland.
Opossums being mainly nocturnal were rarely seen in the daytime, except when caught in traps. Reactions to humans varied ”

“ Tracking of opossums suggested that having once left the home den, an animal ordinarily did not return until it had finished its nightly foraging, and wandered more or less at random over its home range. Successive capture sites for any one opossum might be near together or far apart with respect to its over-all range, but on the average, they would be separated by approximately half the breadth of the home range assuming the animal's activity to be evenly distributed over the whole area. ”

“ The Spotted Opossum, for so it may properly be named, is in length from the nose to the extremity of the tail about twenty-five inches, of which the tail itself takes up about nine or ten. The general colour of the animal is black, inclining to brown beneath; the neck and body spotted with irregular roundish patches of white; the ears are pretty large, and stand erect, the visage is pointed, the muzzle furnished with long slender hairs; the fore, as well as hind legs, from the knees downward, almost naked, and ash-coloured ”

“ An opossum being followed would almost invariably take refuge in a tree if it caught sight of the observer. Other information regarding the animal's habits was obtained from tracks in snow or soft soil and from the distribution and contents of scats. Carcasses of opossums which had fallen victim to predators were found on a few occasions and in some instances clues as to the identity of the predator were obtained. One hundred and seventeen opossums were live-trapped and handled a total of 276 times. ”

“ The proof of their being carnivorous is the fact that they can be caught with flesh for a bait. The mackerel, the tunny, and the bass are for the most part carnivorous, but they do occasionally feed on sea-weed. The sargue feeds on the leavings of the trigle or red mullet. The red mullet burrows in the mud, when it sets the mud in motion and quits its haunt, the sargue settles down into the place and feeds on what is left behind, and prevents any smaller fish from settling in the immediate vicinity. ”

“ The Common or Virginian Opossum, while the only representative of the Marsupial Order found in the temperate latitudes of the North American Continent, has a very considerable range of distribution, occurring in equal abundance throughout the tropical regions of South America. In these warmer latitudes it differs to such an extent in the character of its fur and other minor points that it was for some time regarded as a distinct species, and was distinguished by the title of the Crab-eating Opossum. Biologists are, however, now agreed that the supposed species is only a local variety. ”

“ Opossum.
Opossums furnish the natives with an abundant supply of animal food in all the well-timbered tracts. These creatures, in situations suitable to them, are very numerous. When riding through the forests of the north-eastern parts of Victoria, I have seen, at night, many hundreds of them, and it was not at all difficult to get near them. They are easily seen by moonlight; and, by keeping in the deep shadows cast by the bushes, one can almost reach them by hand when they are on the lower branches of the trees. ”

“ The native black, while conducting me through the forest or among the park-like trees of the open plains, would often point out the pricking of an Opossum's nails on the bark of a Eucalyptus or other tree, and indicate by his actions that in yonder hole, high up, was sleeping an Opossum, a Phalangista, or a Flying Petaurus. Even the objects brought to our bush-fires were enough to incite a desire for a more extended knowledge of Australia's Mammals; for numerous were the species of Kangaroos and Opossums that were nightly roasted and eaten by these children of nature. ”

“ In general, opossums are unsocial but not intolerant in their behavior. In the present study numerous individuals of both sexes and various sizes and ages were found to be occupying the same area simultaneously, with overlapping but no exact correspondence in home ranges. Occasionally two or more opossums may use the same den, but each goes its own way on its foraging and it seems that no sociability is involved. ”

“ I did not neglect to fish up masses of the Sargasso sea-weed every day and examine it through and through for its fauna, and whenever I did this I found many notable cases of mimicry. The color of the younger plants is a yellowish green, while the older stalks are of a more or less dark brown. A luxuriant animal life flourishes on the stems, leaves, and air-vessels of the Sargasso-weed. Little actiniæ, sometimes of a light, sometimes of a dark-brown color, were very numerous on the plants I most closely examined; often so thick as to completely cover the stems. ”

“ Opossums were found to have little inclination to follow beaten trails, either their own or those of other animals. A foraging opossum moved about in an extremely circuitous and erratic route, seldom taking more than a few steps without a change of direction, and frequently crossing its own course in a series of loops, some only a few feet or a few inches in diameter. ”

“ The first thing to be done is to ascertain that the opossum has really concealed itself somewhere in the tree. To discover this the holes made by the nails of the animal in the bark as it climbed up, are sufficient; only, one of these footmarks having a little sand in it is anxiously sought for, and if this sand sticks together, when the hunter blows gently upon it, it is a proof, since it is not dry enough yet to blow away, that the opossum has gone up into the tree that very morning. ”

“ Undisturbed opossums were seen in the course of their normal activities on only a few occasions, and behavior is known to us mainly from the sign and from observations made on those that were live-trapped. Ordinarily those taken in live-traps were found curled up in deep sleep from which they did not arouse until touched or until the trap was moved or jarred. Reactions to humans varied greatly in individuals and was not necessarily correlated with age or sex. Adult males were uniformly hostile to the trapper and reacted with harsh, low growls, with back arched and hair bristling. ”