18S2.] y*^- l^-h". r. Zoology. ?....y./r?x 405 



jumping- fish ( Pcriophthabuus modistiis Sicbnlci), or the " Tobi- 

 haze " as the Japanese call it. This fish is more truly amphibious 

 than the frog, for it is able to change the mode of its respiration 

 at pleasure, breathing water and air alternately. It is accustomed 

 to spend a great part of the time out of water, and actually ap- 

 pears to prefer the air to water. If one attempts to capture it, it 

 rarely, if ever, plunges into the water, but skips along the surface. 

 It can climb up the steep sides of rocks or plants, and jumps along 

 the shore in quest of insects and other small animals, with the 

 agility of a frog. When out of water, it puffs up the cheeks with 

 air, which is held for a short time and then renewed. 



Zones of Life in the Ocean. — Mr. A. Agassiz, in the third 

 volume of the report of the scientific results of the voyage of the 

 CJixiUtnger, recognizes three belts or zones of life from shore to the 

 greatest ocean depths. The following extract is taken from the 

 Harvard University Bulletin No. 21. '' The discovery by Count 

 Pourtales, in his first dredgings off the Florida reefs, of ancient 

 forms closely resembling t^^pes and genera characteristic of the 

 chalk, first suggested the probability of the theories which looked 

 upon the oceanic basins as of very ancient origin, and of their 

 having retained practically unchanged the limits they now occupy 

 from the time of the later Jurassic period. This ancient facies of 

 many of the deep-sea Echini has also been traced in other groups 

 of the animal kingdom. Professor Alph. Milne Edwards, in some 

 of his preliminary reports on the Crustacea of the Blake calls 

 special attention to the resemblance of some of the deep-sea types 

 to the Jurassic and Cretaceous forms. 



" In making a comparison of the bathymetrical belts, Mr. 

 Agassiz has found it convenient to recognize three such belts 

 which are mainly dependent for their characteristics on their tem- 

 perature; pressure, representing great deptji, apparently being a 

 very unimportant element in the distribution of the species. 



" The first belt, the littoral, extending from low-water mark to 

 a depth of about 100-150 fms., represents what is usually known 

 as the continental line (the J 06 fm. line). It is the plateau which 

 is found to represent the extension of the coast line to a depth at 

 which the influence of the direct action of the sun's heat is limited. 

 The next or "continental belt," extends from this continental line 

 to a depth of 450-500 fms., and represents the steep slope which 

 has been subject to greater or less disturbance during the forma- 

 tion of the shore deposits and of the continental plateaus while 

 they were assuming little by little their present outlines; it repre- 

 sents also the bathymetrical belt, in which the diminution of tem- 

 perature is very rapid, the third belt, the abyssal region, extends 

 from the continental linn't to the greatest depths which have thus 

 far been obtained. This region embraces the great oceanic floors 

 where life is somewhat less abundant than along the continental 

 belt, where the detritus carried to its slope supplies abundant food to 



