X PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



Jordan, Evermann, and Clark's Chec\ list of the fishes and fishlike vertebrates 

 of North and Middle America north of the northern boundary of Venezuela and 

 Colombia (Report, U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, pt. 2, 1928 (1930), 670 pp.). 

 This work is cited in the catalogue as the Chec\ list. The division therein of 

 some of the families and genera, as formerly understood, into smaller groups, 

 however, has not always been followed. 



Without doubt, Dr. Longley, after a quarter of a century of diving at Tortugas 

 and elsewhere, knew the habits and haunts of tropical and subtropical reef fishes 

 better than any other person of his day. Though his classifications on the whole 

 are believed to be accurate, and useful to taxonomists, the most important part 

 of this monograph consists in the under-water observations reported. These 

 observations are the more important because of Dr. Longley 's accurate knowl- 

 edge of species. It is evident from the great amount of time he spent in museums 

 (having visited all the important ones in America and Europe) during the later 

 years of his life in the study of types and other important specimens that he was 

 more and more impressed, as his work progressed, with the supreme importance 

 of the proper recognition of species. S. F. H. 



THE TORTUGAS ISLANDS 



The following account of the Tortugas Islands has been extracted and con- 

 densed from a lecture (unpublished) by Dr. Longley: 



The Tortugas are a group of small sandy islands, the terminal members of the 

 series of keys which fringe the southern Florida coast. They are really the outer- 

 most exposed parts of a great sandspit, projecting in a southwesterly direction 

 roughly two hundred miles into the Gulf of Mexico. 



The name, Tortugas, is the Spanish equivalent for Turtle Islands. This name 

 was suggested by the many sea turtles that in years gone by came there to lay 

 their eggs in the sand. It seems that as recently as fifty to sixty years ago as many 

 as forty turtles came ashore to lay eggs in a single night. Now as few as four or 

 five come ashore in the course of a whole season, which is perhaps six to eight 

 weeks long. 



The islands are known as the Dry Tortugas because they contain no natural 

 supply of fresh water. The only fresh water on the islands now is that obtained 

 by storing rain water. 



The position of the islands, lying far from the mainland at the western en- 

 trance of the Florida Strait, has determined their whole history. Their location 

 necessitated the erection of a large lighthouse, on Loggerhead Key, where the 

 laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington was also situated. Their 

 position without doubt also governed the decision to construct a fort, which was 

 erected on Garden Key and is known as Fort Jefferson. 



During and after the Civil War Fort Jefferson served as a military prison. 

 After that period little attention was paid to it from a military point of view, 

 until the Spanish-American War broke out, when a coaling station was estab- 



