The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, Richard Astro Page B
Authors: John Steinbeck, Richard Astro
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are considered interlopers, radicals, subversive forces against the perfect and God-set balance on Cape San Lucas. And they are rightly slaughtered, as all radicals should be. As one of our number remarked, “Why, pretty soon they’ll want to vote.”
Finally we could go. We unpacked the Hansen Sea-Cow and fastened it on the back of the skiff. This was our first use of the Sea-Cow. The shore was very close and we were able just by pulling on the starter rope to spin the propeller enough to get us to shore. The Sea-Cow did not run that day but it seemed to enjoy having its flywheel spun.
The shore-collecting equipment usually consisted of a number of small wrecking bars; wooden fish-kits with handles; quart jars with screw caps; and many glass tubes. These tubes are invaluable for small and delicate animals: the chance of bringing them back uninjured is greatly increased if each individual, or at least only a few of like species, are kept in separate containers. We filled our pockets with these tubes. The soft animals must never be put in the same container with any of the livelier crabs, for these, when restrained or inhibited in any way, go into paroxysms of rage and pinch everything at random, even each other; sometimes even themselves.
The exposed rocks had looked rich with life under the lowering tide, but they were more than that: they were ferocious with life. There was an exuberant fierceness in the littoral here, a vital competition for existence. Everything seemed speeded-up; starfish and urchins were more strongly attached than in other places, and many of the univalves were so tightly fixed that the shells broke before the animals would let go their hold. Perhaps the force of the great surf which beats on this shore has much to do with the tenacity of the animals here. It is noteworthy that the animals, rather than deserting such beaten shores for the safe cove and protected pools, simply increase their toughness and fight back at the sea with a kind of joyful survival. This ferocious survival quotient excites us and makes us feel good, and from the crawling, fighting, resisting qualities of the animals, it almost seems that they are excited too.
We collected down the littoral as the water went down. We didn’t seem to have time enough. We took samples of everything that came to hand. The uppermost rocks swarmed with Sally Lightfoots, those beautiful and fast and sensitive crabs. With them were white periwinkle snails. Below that, barnacles and Purpura snails; more crabs and many limpets. Below that many serpulids—attached worms in calcareous tubes with beautiful purple floriate heads. Below that, the multi-rayed starfish, Heliaster kubiniji of Xanthus. With Heliaster were a few urchins, but not many, and they were so placed in crevices as to be hard to dislodge. Several resisted the steel bar to the extent of breaking—the mouth remaining tight to the rock while the shell fell away. Lower still there were to be seen swaying in the water under the reefs the dark gorgonians, or sea-fans. In the lowest surf-levels there was a brilliant gathering of the moss animals known as bryozoa; flatworms; flat crabs; the large sea-cucumber 12 ; some anemones; many sponges of two types, a smooth, encrusting purple one, the other erect, white, and calcareous. There were great colonies of tunicates, clusters of tiny individuals joined by a common tunic and looking so like the sponges that even a trained worker must await the specialist’s determination to know whether his find is sponge or tunicate. This is annoying, for the sponge being one step above the protozoa, at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder, and the tunicate near the top, bordering the vertebrates, your trained worker is likely to feel that a dirty trick has been played upon him by an entirely too democratic Providence.
We took many snails, including cones and murexes; a small red tectibranch (of a group to which the sea-hares belong); hydroids; many
Finally we could go. We unpacked the Hansen Sea-Cow and fastened it on the back of the skiff. This was our first use of the Sea-Cow. The shore was very close and we were able just by pulling on the starter rope to spin the propeller enough to get us to shore. The Sea-Cow did not run that day but it seemed to enjoy having its flywheel spun.
The shore-collecting equipment usually consisted of a number of small wrecking bars; wooden fish-kits with handles; quart jars with screw caps; and many glass tubes. These tubes are invaluable for small and delicate animals: the chance of bringing them back uninjured is greatly increased if each individual, or at least only a few of like species, are kept in separate containers. We filled our pockets with these tubes. The soft animals must never be put in the same container with any of the livelier crabs, for these, when restrained or inhibited in any way, go into paroxysms of rage and pinch everything at random, even each other; sometimes even themselves.
The exposed rocks had looked rich with life under the lowering tide, but they were more than that: they were ferocious with life. There was an exuberant fierceness in the littoral here, a vital competition for existence. Everything seemed speeded-up; starfish and urchins were more strongly attached than in other places, and many of the univalves were so tightly fixed that the shells broke before the animals would let go their hold. Perhaps the force of the great surf which beats on this shore has much to do with the tenacity of the animals here. It is noteworthy that the animals, rather than deserting such beaten shores for the safe cove and protected pools, simply increase their toughness and fight back at the sea with a kind of joyful survival. This ferocious survival quotient excites us and makes us feel good, and from the crawling, fighting, resisting qualities of the animals, it almost seems that they are excited too.
We collected down the littoral as the water went down. We didn’t seem to have time enough. We took samples of everything that came to hand. The uppermost rocks swarmed with Sally Lightfoots, those beautiful and fast and sensitive crabs. With them were white periwinkle snails. Below that, barnacles and Purpura snails; more crabs and many limpets. Below that many serpulids—attached worms in calcareous tubes with beautiful purple floriate heads. Below that, the multi-rayed starfish, Heliaster kubiniji of Xanthus. With Heliaster were a few urchins, but not many, and they were so placed in crevices as to be hard to dislodge. Several resisted the steel bar to the extent of breaking—the mouth remaining tight to the rock while the shell fell away. Lower still there were to be seen swaying in the water under the reefs the dark gorgonians, or sea-fans. In the lowest surf-levels there was a brilliant gathering of the moss animals known as bryozoa; flatworms; flat crabs; the large sea-cucumber 12 ; some anemones; many sponges of two types, a smooth, encrusting purple one, the other erect, white, and calcareous. There were great colonies of tunicates, clusters of tiny individuals joined by a common tunic and looking so like the sponges that even a trained worker must await the specialist’s determination to know whether his find is sponge or tunicate. This is annoying, for the sponge being one step above the protozoa, at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder, and the tunicate near the top, bordering the vertebrates, your trained worker is likely to feel that a dirty trick has been played upon him by an entirely too democratic Providence.
We took many snails, including cones and murexes; a small red tectibranch (of a group to which the sea-hares belong); hydroids; many
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