Abstract
AS used technically by naturalists, the term “Pelagic” applied to living things denotes those animals and plants which inhabit the surface waters of the seas and oceans. Just as the land surfaces, the sea shores, and the deep ocean beds are each tenanted by assemblages of organisms specially adapted to the conditions of existence there occurring, so the surface waters of the oceans are inhabited by a characteristic fauna and flora. The special modifications in structure which the members composing this fauna and flora exhibit as adapting them to their peculiar environment are of a most interesting and remarkable character: and it is concerning the nature of the Pelagic fauna and fauna, the mutual relations between the two, the strange forms which Pelagic animals assume, their curious habits of life, their zoological and geological importance, that the present lecture on Pelagic Life will consist. I have spoken of pelagic life as belonging to the surface waters of the oceans because it is in the superficial strata in which it appears to be most fully developed; but, as we shall see in the sequel, it is impossible as yet to limit definitely the range of pelagic forms in depth, and we shall even have to refer to some connections of the fauna of the deep ocean bottom with that of the surface.
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References
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Pelagic Life 1 . Nature 26, 559–564 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026559a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026559a0