712 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1883. 



and those found in the deep sea have no doubt some features in com- 

 mon, but none were con-specific. 



Crustaceans. 



Extinction of Crustaceans in old habitats. — On several occasions in 

 these reports reference has been made to the practical extinction or 

 excessive reduction of various animals, but especially of the tile-fish 

 {Lopholatilus chamceleonticeps) from deep-sea plateaus, where they were 

 formerly found in exuberant abundance. The chief mortality occurred, 

 as Professor Smith remarks, in a narrow belt of comparatively warm 

 water (approximately 50° F.), in from 60 to 160 fathoms, which has a 

 more southern fauna than the colder waters either side. Professor 

 Verrill has suggested (Anier. Jour. Sci., Ill, xxiv., p. 366, 1882) that 

 the great destruction of life in this belt was caused by a severe storm 

 in the winter of 1881-82, which agitated the bottom-water and forced 

 outward the cold water that even in summer occupies the great area of 

 shallow sea along the coast, thus causing a sudden lowering of the tem- 

 perature along the warmer belt inhabited by the tile-fish and Crustacea 

 referred to by Professor Smith in the communication now to be noticed. 



Prof. Sidney I. Smith, in a " preliminary report on the Brachyura and 

 Anomura dredged in deep water off the south coast of New England 

 by the Uuited States Fish Commission in 1880, 1881, and 1882," has 

 given some details of the disappearance or extinction, for the time being 

 at least, of certain crustaceans. 



According to Professor Smi'h the last season's dredging off Martha's 

 Vineyard revealed the total, or almost total, disappearance of several 

 of the larger species of crustaceans which were exceedingly abundant 

 in the same region in 1880 and 1881. The most remarkable cases are 

 those of Euprognaiha rastelligera, Collodrs robustus, Catapagurus Shar- 

 reri, Munida Caribcea ? Smith, and Pontophilus brevirostris, all of which 

 were found in great numbers in both of these years. Of the first two 

 not a specimen was taken in 1882, of the Munida oidy a single one, and 

 of the other species very few specimens. Lambrus Verrillii, Acantho- 

 carpus Alexandria Latreillia elegans, Homola barbata, and Anoplonotus 

 politus, which were each taken several times in 1880 and 1881, were none 

 of them taken in 1882 ; they were, however, far less abundant than the 

 other species, and the non-occurrence of some of them was very likely 

 accidental; but the disappearance of part of them at least was un- 

 doubtedly due to the same causes which occasioned the disappearance 

 of the more abundant species. The disappearance of these species, con- 

 tinues Professor Smith, was undoubtedly connected directly with the 

 similar disappearance of the tile fish (Lopholatilus) from the same region, 

 and on this account specially he gave in detail, for many of the species 

 enumerated by him, tables of specimens examined from the region ex- 

 plored by the Fish Commission. All the species mentioned above as 

 having disappeared in 1882 were specially characteristic of the region 

 above indicated. (Proc. TJ. 8. Nat. Mus., vol. VI, pp. 1-57.) 



