A BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE WATERS OF 
WOCDS HOLE AND VICINITY. 
Sad 
Section 1—PHYSICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL. 
By FRANCIS B. SUMNER, RAYMOND C. OSBURN, and LEON J. COLE. 
o* 
Chapter I—INTRODUCTION. 
One of the necessary conditions for the intelligent understanding of a nation’s 
population, its resources and its needs, is the taking of an adequate census. So also 
we can have no proper appreciation of the resources of the sea, and of the means by 
which we may develop and conserve them without first making an accurate inventory 
of its inhabitants. This view was stated quite explicitly by Baird (1873, p. xm) in 
his first report as Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, and has been the assumption 
upon which much of the scientific work of the United States Fish Commission has been 
based. Accordingly it was appropriate that the first annual report of the commission 
should contain not only a Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast of North America, 
so far as then known, but an extended report upon the invertebrate animals of one 
important section of the coast, and a list of the marine algz inhabiting this same region. 
The preparation of these detailed lists of the animals and plants occupying regions 
of greater or less extent has long been the favorite occupation of a certain class of natu- 
ralists. Such lists abound in the annals of botany and zoology. It is only thus, indeed, 
that we have learned how our planet is populated. The cumulative labors, first of 
individuals, then of scientific organizations and of governments, have given us the data 
from which to formulate the laws of geographical distribution. In the beginning we 
have the bare facts of occurrence; then correlations are established between given con- 
ditions of environment and the presence of given species or varieties; finally we are 
brought within striking distance of the great central problem of the origin of the species. 
So much for the scientific aspect of the case. On the practical side, faunistic and 
floristic studies need offer no apology for their existence. They have, indeed, formed 
a part of the established policy of our Government for many years. The Department 
of Agriculture has long maintained a biological survey of the land animals and plants 
of this continent, while our Bureau of Fisheries, following the example of its illustrious 
founder, has slowly but steadily been conducting a census of the inhabitants of our seas 
and lakes. Truly, these creatures are not all fit for food, nor indeed for any commercial 
purpose whatever—though we must add that there are probably many more animals 
and plants of economic value than we now realize. But the life of the earth is an inter- 
related whole. One species stands in relation to another as its enemy, prey, food, 
It 
