THE MIGRATIONS OF CHIMjERA MONSTROSA 17 



The points in Professor Meek's own account to which 

 I demurred (and to which I briefly and parenthetically 

 referred) are (1) that "during the winter Chimaera leads 

 a bathypelagic life," and (2) that " in the spring and 

 early summer a general migration takes place to continental 

 waters." The former statement is opposed, not only by the 

 general trend of my own evidence, but by the categorical 

 statement of Grieg {Icthyol. Not., 1894-95, P- i 2 )- " Om 

 sommeren og hosten fanges C. monstrosa kun paa de storre 

 dyb, og om vinteren derimod gaar den op paa grundere vand, 

 20-40 fv." As to the latter statement, I found no satisfactory 

 evidence for a general migration shorewards ; but, on the 

 contrary, I adduced evidence to show that Chimaera was 

 found in its deep-water Atlantic habitat all the year round. 



I maintain that, however scant}' our dated records of the 

 capture of Chimaera may be, it is on these that w r e are bound 

 to rely, faute de micux ; and we must take them for what they 

 are worth, and in the particular region to which they belong. 

 But Professor Meek's main argument seems to be drawn 

 from analog)-. " The annual denatant migration of Chimaera 

 in the Atlantic," he says, "as we may infer from parallel cases, 

 is a general one, affecting the population as a whole." And 

 again, " Taking into consideration Dean's able account of 

 C. Colliei," Professor Meek " ventures to suggest " that I have 

 " been misled by an apparent consistency in the results in a 

 region where the fish is scarce." In that region the fish most 

 certainly is scarce, but it was with that particular region, that 

 outlying fringe of its wide distribution, that my facts enabled 

 me chiefly to deal. I dealt with them as they stood, by 

 individual place and date, and afterwards (for diagrammatic 

 and approximate clearness) by a statistical summary. I know 

 no better and no safer way ; and I prefer this way to any 

 method of reasoning by analogy, whether . the analogy be 

 that of the '' Selachii and Batoidei in their migrations" (cf. 

 Migration of Fishes, p. 46), or that of another species of 

 Chimaera living under the very different hydrographical 

 conditions of the Pacific coast of North America. 



And lastly, let me call to mind that, so far was I from 

 making any dogmatic generalisation, that I declared that 

 73 c 



