"estimate that 90 percent of lobsters are caught within a year after they reach the legal minimum size at about age six." 大龙虾大约在6岁达到法定的最小个儿以后，不出1年，90%已经被捕捞干净。

Despite declining catches, New England fishermen continue to receive state and federal tax incentives that encourage them, 尽管捕捞量日渐减少，州政府和联邦政府仍在以税收优惠政策鼓励，

in some cases all but compel them—to acquire bigger boats and to harvest the seas more intensively. 在有的情况下差不多是强迫——新英格兰渔民购买更大的船，更彻底地扫荡大海。

Today fishermen of Massachusetts are reduced to fishing the hideous hagfish, for which there is a slight market in the Far East, 今天马萨诸塞州的渔民只能捕捞丑陋的盲鳗，因为这种鱼在远东还有点市场。

but even their numbers are now falling. 但是，连这种鱼的数量如今也在不断减少。

We are remarkably ignorant of the dynamics that rule life in the sea. 我们对支配海洋生命的动力简直一无所知。

While marine life is poorer than it ought to be in areas that have been overfished, 一方面，在捕捞过度的海域，海洋生物少于该有的数量，

in some naturally impoverished waters there is far more life than there ought to be. 另一方面，在天然至贫的水域，海洋生物远远多于该有的数量。

The southern oceans around Antarctica produce only about 3 percent of the world's phytoplankton, 在南极洲周围的南部海洋，只出产世界上大约3%的浮游植物，

far too little, it would seem, to support a complex ecosystem, and yet it does. 少得似乎远远不足以维持一个复杂的生态系统，而它们却维持了。

Crab-eater seals are not a species of animal that most of us have heard of, 食蟹海豹这类动物我们大多数人也许还没有听说过，

but they may actually be the second most numerous large species of animal on Earth, after humans. 但实际上可能是地球上第二众多的大型动物，仅次于人类。

As many as fifteen million of them may live on the pack ice around Antarctica. 多达1500万头食蟹海豹在南极洲周围的浮冰上生活。

There are also perhaps two million Weddel seals, at least half a million emperor penguins, and maybe as many as four million Adelie penguins. 还有大约200万头韦德尔氏海豹，至少50万只皇企鹅，也许多达400万只阿德利企鹅。

The food chain is thus hopelessly top heavy, but somehow it works. 因此，食物链是极其不平衡的，但不知怎的却运转良好。

Remarkably no one knows how. 引人注目的是，谁也搞不清这是什么原因。

All this is a very roundabout way of making the point that we know very little about Earth's biggest system. 我兜了这么个大圈子主要想说明，我们对地球上的最大体知道得少得可怜。

But then, as we shall see in the pages remaining to us, 然而，我们将在剩下的章节里看到，

once you start talking about life, there is a great deal we don't know, not least how it got going in the first place. 一旦开始讨论生命的问题，也有大量的东西我们不知道——尤其是，生命最初是怎么产生的。