PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 11 



mollusks, corals, barnacles and other creatures which they have 

 cracked, swallowed and cleansed of their soft tissues by diges- 

 tion. We have learned from Darwin of the marvelous work of 

 the earthworm in Britain. The ejectameuta of a single fish of 

 moderate size in one day would far exceed the accumulations of 

 many earthworms for much longer time. Now, in examining 

 critically large quantities of material dredged from the bottom 

 I have found that from certain areas almost entirely composed 

 of these ejectamenta. In the interstices some small creatures 

 hide but the tooth marks of the fish were upon nearly every 

 fragment. As for a pint of fragments of a given species, this 

 bottom-stuff would rarely contain half a dozen specimens 

 which had been taken alive by the dredge (most frequently the 

 species did not occur at all living in the material so dredged), 

 it was obviously impossible that the shells could have been 

 captured and afterward voided on the same spot. It seemed 

 more likely from all the facts that these fishes after feeding to 

 repletion repair in large schools to certain areas to enjoy the 

 pleasures of digestion. There would be nothing improbable in 

 the fish of a limited region preferring some special locality for 

 this purpose ; and the result might be the accumulation of a 

 veritable bank, of which nearly the whole had at some time or 

 other passed through the intestine of a fish. At all events, 

 whatever explanation be offered of them, it is certain that such 

 accumulations do occur at certain localities, as shown by the 

 dredgings of the Fish Commission off the eastern coast of the 

 United States. 



The last condition remaining to be considered is that of the 

 food supply. It has long since been pointed out that marine 

 vegetation ceases to exist within a limit of six hundred feet 

 below the surface. Whatever light exists in the depths, it is 

 not of a nature to meet the needs of vegetation. Whether any 



