Under the Sea Wind (24 page)

SCUP OR PORGY. This bronze and silvery fish is abundant in the coastal waters from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Some scup make regular migrations from wintering grounds off the Virginia Coast to New England, spawning off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Usually they live on the bottom, but sometimes they school at the surface like mackerel.

SEA ANEMONE. A peacefully feeding sea anemone strongly resembles a chrysanthemum, but as soon as it is disturbed, this illusion of flowerlike beauty is dispelled and we see a rather unattractive animal, barrel-shaped and flabby. The “flower petals” are the numerous tentacles which the creature expands in feeding to capture small animals by shooting stinging darts into them. Sea anemones are related to jellyfish and coral animals. They are often delicately and beautifully colored, and range in size from a sixteenth of an inch to several feet across. A few specimens are often to be seen in tide pools, or growing attached to wharf pilings.

SEA CUCUMBER. Sea cucumbers bear scarcely any family resemblance to their relatives, the starfish and sea urchins. They are somewhat wormlike in appearance, with a tough, muscular skin. They move sluggishly over the sea bottom, swallowing sand or mud from which they extract small bits of organic food. They have a strange method of defense when harassed by enemies: they expel their internal organs en masse, later to regenerate them at leisure. Dried sea cucumbers are the “trepang” or bêche-de-mer from which the Chinese make soup, and sea urchins containing eggs are eaten in Europe.

SEA LETTUCE. A bright green seaweed of flattened, leafy appearance. Although the fronds are tissue-paper thin, this species often grows on rocks exposed to heavy pounding by waves.

SEA RAVEN. This fish is perhaps the most bizarre member of the sculpin tribe, with its large spiny head, ragged fins, and prickly skin. Found in coastal waters from Labrador to the Chesapeake Bay, it is most abundant north of Cape Cod. When lifted from the water it may inflate its body like a balloon, and if thrown back into the water will float helplessly on its back. It is not a market fish, but shore fishermen often save their catches of “ravens” to use for lobster bait.

SEA ROBIN. The sea robin is a fish found chiefly from South Carolina to Cape Cod, with a few living as far north as the Bay of Fundy. In appearance it suggests the sea raven and other sculpins, having a broad head and large pectoral fins (the fins just behind the gills). Often it lies on the bottom with these fanlike fins outspread and will bury itself in the sand up to the eyes if disturbed. The sea robin eats everything from shrimps, squids, and shellfish to small flounders and herring.

SEA SQUIRT. Sea squirts have leathery, saclike bodies, and when touched eject spurts of water from two openings like short teakettle spouts. They grow attached to stones, seaweeds, wharf piles, and the like, straining food animals out of the water by passing it through an elaborate system of internal structures. Sea squirts belong to a group midway between the invertebrates and the true backboned animals. They are eaten in Japan, some South American countries, and in certain Mediterranean ports.

SHEARWATER. An oceanic bird seen in American coastal waters only when storms occasionally drive it in. One species—the greater shearwater—performs a remarkable migration. Apparently all the members of this species breed on the isolated Tristan da Cunha islands in the South Atlantic ocean. There they nest in deep, grass-lined tunnels in the ground. Every spring they set out on a long northward migration that brings them to the offshore waters of New England, where they remain from mid-May to the middle or end of October. Then they cross the North Atlantic and continue southward off the coasts of Europe and Africa, returning to their island home. It is believed that this circuit of the oceans may take an individual bird two years, and that the breeding cycle may be a biennial one.

SHEEPSHEAD. A food fish taken in coastal waters from Massachusetts to Texas. It is nearly always found around old wrecks, breakwaters, and wharfs. The name probably refers to the peculiar shape of the head and more particularly to the large, sheeplike teeth.

SHRIMP. A shrimp in life is much like a miniature lobster. Only the jointed and flexible “tail” of the animal is brought into the fish markets, the heads being removed in the packing plants because they contain very little muscle.

SILVER EEL. An eel in migrating condition is sometimes called a “silver eel” in allusion to the lustrous, silvery color of its underparts.

SILVERSIDE. A long, slender little fish with a silvery stripe on its sides, found in either fresh or salt water. Schools of this fish are often abundant off sandy coastlines.

SKUA (sk
Å«
'-Ã¥). Skuas are the avian pirates of the high seas. In winter they are fairly numerous on the New England fishing banks, where they terrorize the less belligerent gulls, fulmars, shearwaters, and other birds into giving up the fish, squid, or other food they have caught. The skua nests in Greenland, Iceland, and far northern islands.

SNOW BUNTING. Sometimes called “snowflake,” this small bird of the sparrow tribe nests within the Arctic Zone and in winter wanders south as far as southern Canada and northern United States.

SOLDIER FLY. An insect that gets its name from the gay stripes of the adult. The larvae of some species live in the water as spindle-shaped, dead-looking objects, getting air through a long tube which they push through the surface of the water.

SPADEFISH. This fish has a body that is almost round and very flat from side to side, and so it is aptly called “moonfish” in some localities. It may be from one to three feet long, and habitually forages about wrecks, pilings, and rocks for encrusting animals. It is found from Massachusetts to South America.

SPOT. The fish called spot is so named from a single, round, bronze or yellow spot on each shoulder. It lives in coastal waters from Massachusetts to Texas and is a common food fish. Male spots make a drumming sound like that produced by the croaker, but of less volume.

SQUID. The common squid of the Atlantic Coast is about a foot long, and often is to be found in great numbers in coastal waters. Squids are used extensively as bait in the fisheries. These animals are noted for their rapid, darting motions and for their ability to change color to match their surroundings. Squids, like oysters and snails, are mollusks, but their shell is reduced to a slender, horny, internal structure called the “pen.” These small squids differ in little except size from the almost legendary giant squid, the largest known example of which was fifty feet long, including the extended tentacles.

STING RAY. The flat, roughly quadrangular body of the sting ray and the long, whiplike tail, set with sharp spines, serve to identify it at once. The tail is capable of inflicting an exceedingly painful wound. Sting rays are found along the coast from Cape Cod to Brazil, and occasionally on the shoaler offshore fishing banks. They are closely related to skates and sharks.

TEAL. Although small, the blue-winged teal is one of the swiftest of the ducks. Its migratory range extends from Newfoundland and northern Canada as far south as Brazil and Chile, although many of these birds winter in the latitude of the Middle Atlantic States.

TERN. Terns are characteristically birds of the sea coasts. They may be recognized at a glance by their habit of flying about with heads bent to scan the water for signs of fish, which they capture by diving. They nest in enormous colonies on isolated sandy beaches or islands offshore. One species—the Arctic tern—makes one of the longest migrations on record, from the North American Arctic to the Antarctic regions, via Europe and Africa.

TURNSTONE. A turnstone, once seen, is never forgotten, so startling is the spectacle of this brightly colored black and white and ruddy brown bird of the shore. Its common name refers to its habit of using its short bill to turn over stones, shells, and bits of seaweed in search of sand fleas or other tidbits beneath. It is also called “calico bird.”

WATER BOATMAN. Almost everyone who has ever stood beside a quiet stream or pond has seen this little insect ferryman sculling across the surface film. The oval boat body is only about a quarter of an inch long; the oars are the hindmost pair of legs, much flattened and fringed with hairs. Surprisingly, some water boatmen fly well, indulging this talent at night, and some produce a kind of music by rubbing the forelegs together.

WHITING. The whiting is a strong and vigorous fish that roves the water from bottom to surface in search of its prey, which consists chiefly of all the smaller schooling fishes. The whiting, sometimes called “silver hake,” is closely related to the cod, but is a much more active and slender fish. It is found from the Bahamas to the Grand Banks, and from tidewater down to depths of nearly two thousand feet.

WIDGEON GRASS (w
Ä­
j'-
Å­
n). An aquatic plant which is extensively used as food by waterfowl. Both the small, black seeds and the plant itself are eaten. Widgeon grass grows in brackish water (and sometimes in salt) along the coast, and is found also in interior alkaline waters.

WINGED SNAIL. (See pteropod.)

YELLOWLEGS. Both the greater and lesser yellowlegs are sometimes called “telltale” or “tattler” from their habit of warning less watchful birds, with loud cries, of approaching danger. The lesser yellowlegs is seldom seen on the Atlantic Coast in spring, for its migration path takes it up the Mississippi flyway to breeding grounds in central Canada. Both species are to be seen on eastern beaches in the fall—large shore birds with rather conspicuous yellow legs. They winter south to Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

A Biography of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) was one of the most influential American nature writers of the twentieth century. She wrote four critically acclaimed books, as well as articles and pamphlets on conservation and natural resources. Grounded in the scientific discoveries of the day, Carson's works were notable for their intimate lyric prose that appealed to everyday Americans. She is considered one of the first environmentalists and popularized new ideas and words to describe man's relationship to the earth, such as
ecology
,
food chain
,
biosphere
, and
ecosystem.

Born in the rural town of Springdale, Pennsylvania, near the Allegheny River, Carson spent much of her childhood roaming her family's sixty-five-acre farm and exploring the woods around her home. Her lifelong love of nature, encouraged by her mother, was coupled with a passion for writing, and her first published piece appeared in the popular children's publication
St. Nicholas
when she was ten years old.

Carson pursued writing at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now called Chatham University) but switched her focus to biology before graduating in 1925. After studying at the esteemed Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts and receiving a master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932, Carson joined the U.S. Bureau of Fish and Wildlife Service, where she worked for fifteen years as a scientist, editor, and editor-in-chief of the bureau's publications. When she was named junior aquatic biologist in 1936, she was one of only two female professionals at the bureau.

Carson began writing natural history articles for the
Baltimore Sun
and other papers during the Depression and was encouraged to transform her scientific articles and pamphlets into general-interest pieces. In 1941 she published her first book,
Under the Sea-Wind
, which tells the story of the sea creatures and birds that dwell in and along North America's eastern coast. In 1951 she published
The Sea Around Us
—about the ecosystems within and surrounding the world's oceans—which captured the imaginations of readers around the world. The book became a cultural phenomenon and was named an outstanding book of the year by the
New York Times
, won a National Book Award and John Burroughs Award, and inspired an Academy Award–winning documentary of the same name. The book has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. With this success, Carson left the Fish and Wildlife Service to become a fulltime writer, and in 1955 she published a follow-up to her bestseller, called
The Edge of the Sea
.

A year after publishing
The Edge of the Sea
, Carson adopted the orphaned son of one of her nieces. Stories of her outdoor adventures with Roger would become the touchstones of her essay in
Woman's Home Companion
magazine, “Help Your Child to Wonder,” which was published posthumously as the illustrated
The Sense of Wonder
(1965).

But it was Carson's fourth book,
Silent Spring
(1962), that would again catapult her into the limelight. In this book Carson challenged the widespread, conventional use of many chemical pesticides, including DDT, citing the long-term effects on marine and animal life.
Silent Spring
provoked an outcry of concern, as well as criticism from the chemical industry, government, and media. However, shortly after publication, her findings were accepted by the Science Advisory Committee under President John F. Kennedy. In 1970 President Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, and two years later the use of DDT was banned. The publication of
Silent Spring
has been credited with sparking the environmental movement in the United States and continues to inspire readers today.

Rachel Carson died in 1965 from breast cancer. She was fifty-seven years old. In 1969 the Fish and Wildlife Service named the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, near Carson's home in Maine, in her honor.