cially by Western investigators, but outside of some minor inves- 

 tigations carried out in Mobile Bay by the late Prof. C. L. Her- 

 rick ('84, '87, '95) in the eighties, by Prof. W. H. Wheeler ('00) 

 at Woods Hole in 1899, and some recent work in California 

 waters, the marine Copepod fauna of America is practically un- 

 known, and that of the Gulf perhaps more particularly so. While, 

 as regards the parasitic forms, it is only within the last couple of 

 years (Wilson '02) that the first serious work on one small 

 family — the Argulidae — has been issued under the auspices of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



Apart from their economic value, the Copepoda offer to the 

 biologist a most fascinating study in their complex develop- 

 mental histories. In this direction, he will meet with the inter- 

 esting phases of parthenogenesis, heterogenesis and dimorphism, 

 than which there are no more curious phenomena in the whole 

 book of Nature. 



The time miay come under the rapid increase of population 

 when the fisheries of our Southern waters will have become so 

 far depleted as to compel artificial cultural operations such as 

 have been so successfully carried out in our Eastern waters under 

 the auspices of the U. S. Fish Commission in the case of the shad, 

 cod, mackerel and lobster fisheries, in the Great Lakes with the 

 white fish and on the Pacific Coast with the salmon. This time 

 may be distant — and it is to be hoped that it be — but no system 

 of artificial fish-culture can be undertaken with any chance of 

 success without a knowledge of the full life-histories and habits 

 of the species being first ascertained, and that without this knowl- 

 edge, it is safe to say that all attempts will prove failures. It is 

 only quite recently that the question of the artificial propagation 

 of the oyster has been brought prominently before the people of 

 Louisiana, and, as with the oyster, it may be that in the near 

 future sonic line will have to be taken in regard to some of the 

 most delicate of food-fishes now so abundant in our markets. 



Such lines of primary investigation must, of necessity, cover 

 a Igng period of patient and continued research. The mere 

 patching together of a fact or two, gathered here and there, will 

 not be suffcient, and experience gained elsewhere may be of com- 

 paratively little value owing to local conditions. It is therefore 

 not without significance, that should the above contingency arise, 

 the mere fact that the Copepoda form the basis of the food of 

 fish fry, and in many cases of mature fishes, will make any pre- 

 vious knowledge as to the geographical distribution of the Gulf 

 species, of their bathymetrical distribution under varying tern- 



