It puts forth very fine threads, which gradually
lengthen, unfolding from their sides transparent tendrils like those of
a vine. These catch hold of and twine around some fixed thing, and moor
the craft; and when the Beroe is about to be roving again, they unwind
themselves, and all slip quietly back into the little ice-ball out of
sight.
There are countless millions of Beroes in the Arctic regions, where the
sea is in some parts colored by them for miles and miles. If there were
not such immense fleets of these tiny paddle-boats there would be
little chance for us to wonder at them, because they choose for their
moorings just the places where whales love best to feed and play their
rough games, and where, too, their own presence in the sea makes it
into a kind of soup of which whales are very fond.
TINY TREES.
Only think of trees, full-grown trees, so small that several of
them,--roots, stems, branches and all,--piled one above another, would
not be as tall as I am!
What kind of birds would stoop to roost in such little, little trees,
I'd like to know?
They tell me that such tree-lings do really grow, away up, on high
mountains, near where the snow stays all the year through, and also in
very cold countries near the polar circles.
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