PREVIOUS WORK IN OTHER SECTORS 13 



PREVIOUS WORK IN OTHER SECTORS OF THE ANTARCTIC 



A good deal of research has been undertaken in Antarctic localities outside the 

 Falklands sector, a summary of which to the year 1922 will be found on pp. 28-9 of 

 the Terra Nova report (H.-A. and E. 1922, TN). No separate report on the Foramini- 

 fera discovered by the British Discovery Expedition, 1901-4, was published, but a 

 certain amount of material was examined by Heron- Allen and Earland. The results are 

 incorporated in the Terra Nova report, passim, and on pp. 233-5 c>f that report. 



THE TERRA NOVA EXPEDITION 



The report on this expedition deals with the sector of the Antarctic between New 

 Zealand and the Ross Sea, and includes a great many stations in the south-west Pacific 

 extending from the northern extremity of New Zealand down to the Ross Sea. Apart 

 from the labour of separating records from such widely diverse areas, is the further 

 difficulty that it is very deep water all the way from the continental slope of New 

 Zealand to the corresponding Antarctic slope, which is well within the ice region. As 

 the foraminiferal fauna of deep water is very similar in all oceans, and identical in many 

 respects with the fauna of shallower water in high latitudes, it is really impossible to 

 draw a line and say where the Terra Nova Antarctic region begins. I do not know the 

 position of the Antarctic convergence in this area, which might have been some guide. 

 For purposes of comparing the fauna of the Terra Nova report with that of the Falk- 

 lands sector of the Antarctic, I have therefore taken all stations which lie outside the New 

 Zealand continental slope, i.e. the H.-A. and E. Sts. 13-55 inclusive. These include 

 many stations which are entirely outside the Antarctic, but being in very deep water 

 their fauna, apart from pelagic species, will be of a cold-water type, and they may be 

 regarded as balancing those deep-water Discovery stations which also, strictly speaking, 

 are outside the Antarctic. 



On this basis I estimate that there are 369 Antarctic species and varieties r.ecorded in 

 the Terra Nova report. Of these 280 figure under the same or an amended name in this 

 report, and nineteen others in the South Georgia report but not in this. Of the re- 

 mainder it may be said that, apart from special rarities, including new species and 

 varieties, there are not many which have not a known distribution outside the Antarctic. 

 I think the great similarity between the lists is strong evidence that the Ross Sea, and the 

 deep south-west Pacific to the south of New Zealand, are zoologically a continuous area 

 with the Bellingshausen and Scotia Seas. 



Corroborative evidence of this theory is afli"orded by Chapman's report on Foramini- 

 fera from soundings in the Ross Sea (C. 1914, FORS), as out of sixty-four species and 

 varieties described more than fifty are in the Discovery list. 



Several of the new species described in the Terra Nova report and by Chapman have 

 been found again by the ' Discovery '. Among them are those given in the table on p. 14. 



This might be regarded as very strong or even conclusive evidence of the zoological 

 identity of the areas, but for the fact that five of the six species marked with an asterisk 

 have been recorded by Wiesner from Kaiser Wilhelm's Land. These five species appear 



