2.S8 DEEP-SEA FISHES OP THE ATLANTIC BASIN. 



account after another came in it became apparent that a vast destruction of fish had taken 

 ])1 ace, for vessels reported having sailed for 4t), 50, and 60 miles through tloiiting fish; and 

 in one case the schooner Xavariiio sailed for above 150 miles through waters dotted as far 

 as the eye could reach with dying fishes. Computations made by Cai^t. J. W. Collins, 

 seemed to indicate that an area of from 5,000 to 7,500 sijuare statute miles was so thickly 

 covered with dead or dying fish that their numbers must have exceeded the enor- 

 mous number of one billion. Since there were no signs of any disease, and no parasites 

 found on the fish brought in for examination, their death could not have been brought 

 about by either of tliese causes; and many conjectures were made as to the reason of this 

 wholesale destruction of deep-water fishes, such as would ordinarily be unaffected by 

 conditions prevailing at tlie surface, submarine volcanoes, heat, cold, and poisonous 

 gases being variously brought forward to account for the loss of life. 



Prof. Verrill has noted tlie occurrence of a strip of water, having a temperature of -tS^ 

 to 50° v., lying on the border of the Gulf-Stream slope, sandwiched between the Arctic 

 current on the one hand and the cold depths of the sea on the other. During 1880 and 

 1881 Prof. Yerrill dredged along the G-ulf-Stream slope, obtaining in this warm belt, as he 

 terms it, many species of invertebrates characteristic of more southern localities. In 1882 the 

 same species were scarce or totally absent from places where they had previously been abund- 

 ant, and this taken in connection with the occurrence of heavy northerly gales and the pres- 

 ence of much inshore ice at the north, leaves little doubt that some unusual lowering of tem- 

 perature in the warnr belt brought immediate death to many of its inhabitants. This is the 

 more probable, as it is a well-known fact that sudden increase of cold will bring many fish to 

 the surface in a benumbed or dying condition, and there are no indications of any shock or 

 earthquake having occurred at the time the dead fish were first noticed.' 



For several years the fish was believed to have become entirely extinct, and so con- 

 vinced were naturalists of this that a chapter was devoted to it in a paper by Mr. Lucas in 

 the Report of the National Museum for 1889 upon "Animals recently extinct." Several 

 visits were made by Fish Commission vessels to the old Lopholatilus gi'ounds, but all 

 attempts to obtain specimens were fruitless. 



Ill the fall of 1802 Col. Marshall McDonald, the Commissioner of Fisheries, made 

 another attempt to discover the fish, and was successful, obtaining it from the following 

 stations: A single specimen on August 6, in 40° 06' N. lat., 71° 00' W. Ion., in 78 fathoms; 

 one specimen on August 18, in 40° 08' IST. hit., 71^08' W. Ion., in 78 fathoms; one specimen 

 on Sei>teinber 17, in 39° 26' N. lat., 72° 22' W. Ion., at a depth of 74 fathoms; three si)eci- 

 mens on September 18, in 39° 20' N. lat., 72° 27' W. long., in 77 fathoms, and two speci- 

 mens on October 8, in 38° 40' N. lat., 73° 09' W. Ion., at a depth of 80 fathoms. 



The tile fish then is restored to tlie list of existing species of our North Atlantic coast, 

 and it is probable that in time it may attain to its former abundance. The temperature 

 investigations made by Col. McDonald have been carefully discussed by him, and he is 

 convinced that the destruction of Lopholafilns was due entirely to climatic causes. 



Family PERCOPHID^<E. 



Percophidte, Adams, Mann al of Natural History, 1854, 103. — Gill, Century Dictionary. 



Acanthopterygian fishes with elongate body, pointed head, a short first and a long 

 second dorsal, and complete thoracic ventrals, moderately approximated. {<iiU.) 



APHRITIS, Cuvier and Valenciennes. 

 Aphrith, Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss., viii, 483.— Guntheu, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., ii, 242. 



Body cyhndrical, elongate; cleft of the mouth slightly oblique, with the lower jaw 

 rather longer; eye lateral. Scales rather small, minutely ciliated. Two sejiarate dorsals 

 (the first with G spines); ventrals jugular, with 1 spine and 5 soft rays; the lower pectoral 

 rays branched. Villiform teeth in the jaws, on the vomer (and the palatine bones), with- 



' Notes by F. A. Lucas. 



