Report on the Fishes collected by the Bahama 



Expedition, of the State University of 



Iowa, under Professor C. C. 



Nutting in 1893. 



By Professor S. GARMAN. 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 



There are representatives of sixty-five species of fifty- 

 three genera, in this collection. Five of the species are de- 

 scribed as new. The great majority of the individuals are 

 small; many of them are so young as to make it evident that 

 the spawning beds are not far from the places of capture. 

 Much the larger number of the species are such as frequent 

 the shoal waters near the shores, or such as habitually remain 

 near the surface in the open sea. The few, of genera like 

 Chaunax, Halieutichthys, Phycis, Leptophidium, and Mono- 

 lene, to which the terms deep sea fishes may be applied bear 

 indications that their haunts were not beyond the reach of the 

 effects of sunlight, but rather that they dwelt in an intermedi- 

 ate zone at the edge of complete darkness, in a twilight belt 

 of which a more thorough knowledge is one of the great 

 desiderata in marine science. There is a general interest 

 attaching to this region in connection with our oceanic food 

 supplies, but, beyond that, specialists in various departments 

 eagerly await any addition to knowledge of conditions inside 

 the borders of the shadowy zone through which sunlight is 

 not supposed to reach. The warmth of their desire for such 

 information will be more readily appreciated when it is under- 

 stood that they have great hope that by means of efforts 

 within its limits, toward the determination of the structure, of 

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