ANIMALS RECENTLY EXTINCT. (549 



and many conjectures were made as lo the reason of this wholesale 

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

 by conditions prevailing at the surface, submarine volcanoes, heat, 

 cold, and poisonous gases being variously brought forward to account for 

 the loss of life. 



Professor Verrill has noted the occurrence of a strip of water, having 

 a temperature of 48° to 50° Far., lying on the border of the Gulf-Stream 

 slope, sandwiched in between the Arctic current on the one hand and 

 the cold depths of the sea on the other. During 1880 and 1881 Pro- 

 fessor Verrill dredged along the Gulf-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 abundant, 

 and this taken in connection with the occurrence of heavy northerly 

 gales and the presence of much inshore ice at the north, leaves little 

 doubt that some unusual lowering of temperature in the warm 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. Whether the entire race of 

 tile fish has become extinct, or whether they will later on be discov- 

 ered on grounds to the southward of the localities where they were 

 formerly found, it is impossible to say. Certain it is that none have 

 been taken since the spring of 1882, although in the autumn of that 

 year Captain Collins made careful trials in their former habitat with 

 a view of ascertaining if any remained there. It is no less singular 

 that so large and plentiful a fish should have remained so long un- 

 known than that it should disappear almost as yoon asit was discovered. 

 Should the tile fish appear no more, it will be one of the few animals 

 exterminated in modern times, for whose extinction man is in no ways 

 accountable. 



AUTHORITY. 



History of the tile fish. J. YV. Collins. Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fish- 

 eries for 188'2, pp. '2:57-'2 ( .h>, Washington, 1884. 



