COMPLETE LIST OF EXHIBITS AT THE 



NEW YORK AQUARIUM 



Vertebrates and Invertebrates SJioivn since the Opening of the 

 Building, December 10, 1896. 



Bij Ida M. Mellen. 



The Ninth Annual Report contained a partial list of the 

 vertebrates exhibited at the Aquarium during the year 1904 ; 

 and in the Seventeenth Annual Report a longer list was pub- 

 lished, showing the vertebrates exhibited from 1896 to 1912. 



The list here presented, revised from records kept by Mr, 

 W. I. DeNyse, shows the species of animals, both vertebrate and 

 invertebrate, exhibited at the Aquarium during the twenty-two 

 years of its existence. It comprises more than a hundred species 

 of invertebrates, and 447 species of vertebrates of which 361 

 are fishes. 



Written records have not been kept of the length of life of 

 invertebrates in captivity, but under present conditions most are 

 comparatively short-lived. White anemones have survived two 

 years in balanced aquaria, as have also clam worms. Lobsters 

 and horse shoe crabs have lived three years in captivity. Mol- 

 lusks survive longest of all invertebrates, mud snails, sea mus- 

 sels and oysters having lived five years or more. The installation 

 of a cold sea water system would undoubtedly add not only to 

 the length of invertebrate life in the tanks, but to the longevity 

 of many of the northern marine fishes. 



The dates of receipt and loss of vertebrate specimens are 

 carefully recorded, and it is interesting to note the hardihood of 

 some species of native fishes, of both fresh and salt water, as the 

 garpikes, that have survived twenty years in captivity, the bow- 

 fin eighteen years, the striped bass nineteen years. Our large 

 sea lion, despite lack of sunshine in which all the seal family 

 love to bask, and though subject to the ills that mammalian flesh 

 is generally heir to, has been with us for eleven years. A nine 

 and a half foot Florida alligator that recently died, had passed 

 thirteen years in one of the floor pools, and expired at last from 



