March 31 Summary and Analysis

In the morning, the low tide is quite high and the wind is up, making it difficult to collect onshore or underwater. Instead, they carefully survey the upper zone of the beach, and Steinbeck provides a summary of which species have been found to be most common in their travels so far. Rather than the rare species, Steinbeck notes that they are more interested in the common species and beyond that, the interrelationships between species and their habitats. They are especially interested in species that live symbiotically—his term is commensally. He gives a number of reasons why species might do this, including not eating each other and/or eating the same kinds of food, thriving under similar environmental conditions, protecting each other in some way, and dividing up the tasks of daily life.

As the party sails northward in...