244 The Geographical Distribution of Fishes 



the greatest range or variety of species. Those regions where 

 the greatest number of genera are thus autochthonous may be 

 regarded as centers of distribution. So far as the marine fishes 

 are concerned, the most important of these supposed centers are 

 found in the Pacific Ocean. First of these in importance is the 

 East-Indian Archipelago, with the neighboring shores of India. 

 Next would come the Arctic Pacific and its bounding islands, 

 from Japan to British Columbia. Third in importance in this 

 regard is Australia. Important centers are found in temperate 

 Japan, in California, the Panama region, and in New Zealand, 

 Chili, and Patagonia. The fauna of Polynesia is almost entirely 

 derived from the Indies; and the shore fauna of the Red Sea, 

 the Bay of Bengal, and Madagascar, so far as genera are con- 

 cerned, seems to be not really separable from the Indian fauna 

 generally. 



I know of but six genera which may be regarded as autoch- 

 thonous in the Red Sea, and nearly all of these are of doubtful 



FIG. 174. Globe-fish, Tetraodon setosus Rosa Smith. Clarion Island, Mexico. 



value or of uncertain relation. The many peculiar genera de- 

 scribed by Dr. Alcock, from the dredgings of the Investigator 

 in the Bay of Bengal, belong to the bathybial or deep-water 

 series, and will all, doubtless, prove to be forms of wide dis- 

 tribution. 



In the Atlantic, the chief center of distribution is the West 

 Indies; the second is the Mediterranean. On the shores to the 

 northward or southward of these regions occasional genera have 



