
Bathymetric 
Name. Range Other localities. 
in Indian Seas. 

( Trachichthys intermedius, Gthr. 
[ New Zealand. | 272 fms. 
Neobythites macrops, Gthr. [ Fiji. ] 188-405 fms. | Table IV. 

B Macrurus parallelus, Gthr. 
= {New Zealand. | 097 fms. | Table V. 
SS Bathygadus cottoides, Gthr. 
[N. Zealand & Kermadecs. | 410 fms. 
Neoscopelus macrolepidotus, Johns. 

{ Kermadees.] | 188-405 fms. | Tables I & IT. 


The fact, discovered by the above lists, that so many intimate affinities of 
the fauna of the moderate depths of the Indian Seas are with the North 
Atlantic fauna, is so singular as, of itself, to be sufficient to suggest a direct 
sea connexion, in the past, between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the 
eases of Caryophyllia communis and Flabellum laciniatum would indicate that 
the connexion was by way of the Mediterranean. 
Now such a conclusion is in perfect accord with the conclusions of 
Geology; for there seems to be strong geological evidence (1) that at or about 
those Tertiary times when Flabelium laciniatum and Caryophyllia communis 
lived in the Mediterranean Sea, that sea was in open communication with the 
West Indian Seas, and also probably extended eastwards as far as Northern 
Persia and the Red Sea;* and (2) that, at some early part of Tertiary time, 
seas extended from Europe across the Sahara and Arabia far into India.t+ 
Moreover more than one zoologist has noticed affinities between certain 
elements of the existing fauna of the Mediterranean and of Oriental Seas and 
has sought to account for such affinities by a direct open-sea connexion. 
For instance, Dr. Giinther many years ago discovered the existence of 
marked affinities between the fish-fauna of the Mediterranean Sea and neigh- 
bouring Atlantic waters and that on the one hand of Japan and that on the 
other hand of the West Indies. References to these interesting affinities are 
frequent in his writings; and in the Introduction to the Study of Fishes, 
p. 270, he says, in comparing the shore-fishes of Japan with those of the 
Mediterranean, “we can only account for the singular distribution of these 
shore-fishes by assuming that the Mediterranean and Japanese Seas were in 
direct and open communication with each other within the period of the exist- 
ence of the present Teleosteous Fauna.” 
* Suess, chapter on the Mediterranean, in Das Antlitz der Erde. See also J. W. Gregory, Quarterly Journal 
of the Geol. Soc. Vol. li., August, 1895, pp. 255-310. 
+ Suess, chapter on the Remains of the Indian Continent, in Das Antlitz der Erde. 
I refer to the French translation of Suess’s book, by De Margerie, 
2 
