8 GEORGE V SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a A. 1918 



XIV 



BATHYMETRIC CHECK LIST OF THE MARINE INVERTEBRATES OF 

 EASTERN CANADA WITH AN INDEX TO WHITEAVES' CATALOGUE.^ 



(Br E. M. KiXDi.E and E. J. Whittaker.) 



IXTRODUCTORV NOTE. 



The primary object of this paper is to bring together in columnar form all of the 

 available information relating to the depth at which the various species of marine 

 invertebrates live which are known from the Atlantic coastal waters of Canada. The 

 value of the segregation and graphic presentation of any group of facts relating to 

 invertebrate environment is obvious from the standpoint of ecology. The 

 significance of many factors in the environment of faunas becomes clearly apparent 

 only when treated in this way. There is no factor in marine faunal environment which 

 more readily lends itself to this kind of analysis than bathymetric data. Such data 

 though nearly always given by marine Zoologists are generally placed obscurely in the 

 midst of extraneous matter and almost never shown in tabular or easily comprehensible 

 form. 



Bathymetric range of fossil faunas is a factor which enters into many problems 

 in palaeontological correlation and it is very desirable that the palaeontologist as well 

 as the zoologist should have access to the recorded bathymetric data in tabular form 

 relating to present marine faunas. There perhaps is no group of facts pertaining to 

 recent faunas of greater significance to stratigraphic palaeontologists than those relating 

 to the bathymetric range of species. The geologic importance of knowing the present 

 range in depth of the marine shells now living in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is clearly 

 apparent to the geologist who attempts to use the fossil Pleistocene shells of the St. 

 Lawrence valley in interpreting the details of its Post-glacial history. The geological 

 iind zoological importance of this class of data has induced the authors to bring 

 together in columnar form the recorded information regarding the bathymetric range ol 

 species as recorded by Dr. Whiteaves together with the data published by later authors. 

 In order to facilitate rapid comparative examination of the bathymetric data it has been 

 recorded in columnar form, five columns being used. The first three of these columns 

 corre.'^pond respectively to the intertidal or beach, the laminarian and the coralline 

 zones. The intertidal zone extends between low and high tides; the laminarian zone 

 reaches from low-water mark to 15 fathoms; the fourth column includes depths of 

 from 50 to 100 fathoms which may be termed the subcoralline zone. The 100 fathom 

 line marks the approximate margin of the continental shelf. All of the records exceed- 

 ing this depth have for convenience been placed together in a single column. 



The bathymetric check list has been brought up to date by the examination of the 

 papers on the marine invertebrates of Eastern Canada which have appeared since the 

 publication of Dr. Whiteaves' paper. Where these later contributions have furnished 

 new bathymetric information its source is indicated by a number following the species 

 name which refers to the bibliographic list at the end of this paper. 



The authors have also undertaken in the following pages to make more easily 

 accessible and usable the large amount of information on the marine faunas of 

 Eastern Canada contained in Dr. Whiteaves' Catalogue of the Marine invertebrata 

 of Eastern Canada- by the preparation of an index to it. Many zoologists have doubt- 



1 Published with the permission of the Director of the Canadian Geological Survey. 

 - Geol. Survey of Canada, 1901. 



229 



