74 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
expected as great as in the waters between the Yorkshire 
coast and the coast of Spain, off Cape Finisterre. In the 
northern regions, say from Cape Chidley south through the 
Straits of Belle Isle to Anticosti, and even up the St. 
Lawrence for some distance, there occur species which belong to the 
Greenlandic or, as Dr. Schmitt says, the Icelandic fauna, “ Dr. Henri 
Labonne m’a montré des brachiopodes,” he says, qu’il avait rapportés 
des côtes d’Islande et qui rappellent tout à fait ceux que j’ai trouvés 
ici.” 1 Yet it was a very large specimen of Physalia, the tropical Portu- 
guese Man of War, which Sir Henry Bonnycastle saw as he approached 
Canada from Cape Ray on August 30th, 1841, and he glowingly 
described its brilliant cerulean hues. Dr. Whiteaves is no doubt well 
justified, from his really unparalleled knowledge of the shallow and deep 
water fauna of our Atlantic coast, in questioning the view of Dr. A. 8. 
Packard, that the term Syrtensian should be apphed to the whole body 
of water, shallow and deep, of the Gulf, and Labrador, and Nova Scotia, 
hut rather that the term applies to that extension of the Boreal fauna 
stretching from Maine, the Nova Scotia coast, the Gulf, and the outer 
Labrador. waters across the Atlantic to Iceland and the Norway coast, 
from the Naze northward. It may he doubted whether, however, the 
term Acadian will be found ultimately to accurately apply to the very 
extensive areas embracing the Grand Manan waters, Passamaquoddy 
Bay, Halifax Harbour, Prince Edward Island, the Magdalens, and the 
southern part of the Bay of Chaleurs, exclusive of the deeper parts. 
The great body of ice annually moving from the North Shore and 
possibly from Davis and Hudson Straits, down through Northumberland 
and Cabot Straits, and hugging the shores, occasionally remaining, 
indeed, on the Inverness shore of Cape Breton until June, has a potent 
influence on the inshore shallows, and results in that paucity of species 
and stunted character of specimens which have disappointed many a 
zealous naturalist when investigating our Gulf littoral fauna. While 
active forms, like fishes, and floating invertebrates, like meduse, may 
mislead, faunistically, whereas non-migratory creatures like Echinoderms, 
Annelids, Polyzoa, Mollusks, etc., may be diagnostic, yet the recent 
captures of many more southerly fishes, Scomberoids, (Scomberomorus, 
Poronotus, etc.,) the Tarpon (Tarpon atlanticus), the Sword-fish 
(Xiphias gladius), and many sharks and dog-fishes, which favour 
warmer zones, must be taken as indications that bodies of warmer water 
interdigitate with the colder bodies sweeping from the north, and render 
it difficult to define faunistic areas, until the main currents off our shores 
have been more fully mapped out.? 

1“ Monographie de L'Isle Anticosti.” Paris, 1904. 
?The Tidal Survey carried on assiduously for many years by a Fellow 
of the Society, Dr. W. Bell Dawson, is doing much to fill the gap. 
