4 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



era] subdivisions of the eastern American coast by various naturalists, 

 but especially Dana, Packard, and Verrill.* 



Five such faunas are embraced in the scope of the catalogue, and 

 have been designated by the following names: 



1. Arctic fauna, (properly realm,) which embraces the entire polar 

 region, and extends southward to a yet undetermined distance, but not 

 as far as Newfoundland. Inasmuch, however, as most of the fishes 

 found in the Greenland seas have not been noted as occurring elsewhere, 

 it would be advisable to be specific as to their habitats. 



2. Syrtensian fauna, distinguished by Packard from the Arctic. 

 It includes the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, but its limits 

 have not been well defined. 



.">. Acadian fauna, named by Liitkeu, but first distinguished as the 

 Nova Scotian by Dana. It extends from the Syrtensian southerly to 

 Cape Cod, close to the shore, but pushes farther southward in deeper 

 water, and at a distance from the shore. 



4. Virginian fauna, bounded to the north by Cape Cod and to the 

 south by Cape Hatteras. 



5. Carolinian fauna, extending from Cape Hatteras southward to 

 the northern limits of the coral-reefs of Florida. 



It must also be borne in mind that the general character of the coast 

 of the northern faunal areas is quite different from that of the southern 

 ones, the former having a rock-bound shore-line, while the latter (Vir- 

 ginian and Carolinian) have chiefly an areniferous one, with few rocks, 

 and the distinctive peculiarities of the northern and southern faunas are 

 considerably increased by these physical differences of the coast. 



Such are the designations that might be most desirable in a scientific 

 treatise. In order, however, to avoid all cavil, the circumlocutory form 

 of designating the limits of the faunas for each species has, at the in- 

 stance of the Commissioner of Fisheries, been adopted. But it must be 

 understood that many of the species have not been detected at the dif- 

 ferent points within the limits specified, and may have been only found 

 once. In all cases, however, (except when specially designated as w - ac- 

 cidental" or "occasional,") the species, in all probability, can be found 

 at fitting stations within the described Hants. 



POPULAR NAMES. 



The popular names, so far as known, have been added after the scien- 

 tific ones, and in a number of cases, at the request of the Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, names for popular use have been framed for species having no 

 other distinctive ones. These new terms have been mostly derived from 

 names applied to related forms in this country or England, which are 

 used rather in a generic than specific sense, and with the addition of a 



* Verrill (Addison E.) Revision of the Polypi of the Eastern Coast of the United 

 States (December, 1863). <Meinoirs read before the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 vol. 1, p. 41. 



