PATAGONIAN REGION 137 



GENERAL PART 



THE PATAGONIAN REGION 



In his report on the fishes of the ' Terra Nova' Expedition, Regan (1914) has discussed 

 the distribution of Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic coast fishes in some detail, and concludes 

 that south of the Tropical Zone the distribution of these fishes is best illustrated by the 

 following classification : 



South Temperate Zone, with seven districts : Chile, Argentina, Tristan da Cunha, 

 Cape, St Paul, Australia, and New Zealand. 



Sub-Antarctic Zone, with two districts : Magellan and Antipodes. 



Antarctic Zone, with two districts : Glacial and Kerguelen. 



The Patagonian region, as here understood, includes Tierra del Fuego, the coasts of 

 Patagonia northward as far as Chiloe on the west and as far as the San Jose or Valdes 

 Peninsula (about latitude 42 S) on the east, the Falkland Islands, and the Burdwood 

 Bank. The northern and southern limits of the region correspond very closely to the 

 mean annual surface isotherms of 12 C. and 6° C, and apart from the fact that its 

 northern boundary on the east coast lies about 300 miles north of Cape Blanco, the 

 Patagonian region represents the Magellan district as delimited by Regan. By taking 

 the boundary as far north as the San Jose Peninsula all the stations made by the 

 ' William Scoresby ' during her trawling surveys are included within the area. 



HISTORICAL 1 



Bougainville (1771), in his account of a voyage round the world in the 'Boudeuse' 

 and the 'Etoile', in which he was accompanied by Commerson, appears to have been 

 the first to mention the fishes of the Patagonian region, and has some notes on the 

 "Muge" (Eleginops), " Brochet transparent" (Galaxias), and " r Truite"(Aplochiton), 

 from the Falkland Islands (Malouines). 



Captain Cook's second expedition with the 'Adventure' and the 'Resolution' 

 between 1772 and 1775, accompanied by J. R. Forster as naturalist (with his son 

 J. G. Forster as assistant), obtained three species of fish from Tierra del Fuego. The 

 specimens were not preserved, but the species were given names by Schneider (1801) 

 on the basis of the MS. notes and the drawings made by J. G. Forster, and the de- 

 scriptions were also published by Forster (1844). The notes and drawings are in the 

 library of the British Museum (Natural History), but only one of the fishes (Horpagifer 

 bispinis) can be identified with certainty. One of the others is a species of Notothenia, 

 probably N. macrocephala, and the last is either a Cottoperca or a Notothenia and may 

 well be Cottoperca gobio. The earliest fishes described from the Patagonian region are, 

 thus: 



Gadus magellanicus, Schneider (? Notothenia macrocephala). 

 Callionymns trigloides, Schneider (? Cottoperca gobio). 

 C. bispinis, Schneider (Harpagifer bispinis). 



1 Much of the data for this section has been obtained from the valuable summary of Dollo (1904, pp. 67-78). 



