228 



NA TURE 



[January 4, 1500 



merits and its defects. The subject is one which has a singular 

 interest to nie, for I have been working out the fauna of Italy 

 and its dependent seas, especially in relation to Vertebrata, for 

 the last five and twenty years, and have formed a collection in 

 which about 38,000 specimens (25,000 being fish) represent the 

 vertebrate fauna of Italy and the seas which surround it. I soon 

 found that although strong in Mollusca, Dr. Kobelt was weak 

 in the knowledge of other classes of animals, and that along 

 with solid fact" his book also contains a number of grave 

 inaccuracies. Now I am very busy, and find that life is far too 

 short to allow the waste of time caused by polemics ; I usually, 

 therefore, avoid them, and should certainly have passed over 

 -Dr. Kobelt's errors and omissions had not your reviewer's 

 remarks in No. 1570 of Naturk (page 99) rendered it impera- 

 tive that I also should ask you to allow me to make a few 

 remarks. Nature has now fully undertaken the noble task of 

 keeping scientific investigators up to the mark as regards the 

 -general progress of knowledge, and it is not fair that it should 

 unwittingly propagate error. Now of the several chapters of 

 Dr. W. Kobelt's book, the poorest and the worst is by far the 

 one (viertes A'apilel) which he has devoted to "Das Mittelmeer," 

 the classic ground of the renowned labours of Edward Forbes 

 and of so many before and after him. How ever could a German 

 living in the land of bookworms and patient labourers in biblio- 

 graphy write such a chapter, and come amongst other incorrect and 

 incongruous conclusions, to that pyramidal error that the abyssal 

 parts of the Mediterranean are azoic ? Good and learned Dr. 

 Carpenter said something similar about twenty years ago, after 

 the fruitless dredgings of the Po7-cupine and Shearwater, but he 

 lived to know that he had been mistaken, and we discussed the 

 very subject together at a 'dinner at his own house in June 

 1883. 



It was on August 5, 1881, that I sent an express across 

 Asinara to Porto Torres, North Sardinia, bearing a letter to the 

 editor of Nature in which I gave the first account of the dis- 

 covery of typical representatives of the North Atlantic deep-sea 

 fauna in the abyssal area off North- west Sardinia ; on that occasion 

 spiecimens of Polyihetes (Willemoesia), Brisinga and Hyalovenia 

 had. been secured with the trawl (Nature, August 18, 1881, p. 

 358). : A few days later, from depths between 3000 and 1500 

 metres,' I got two new. forms of Macrurid fishes, so character- 

 istic of the abyssal fauna, viz., Chalinura mediterranea and 

 Bymenocephalus italicHs ; of the former the two specimens then 

 caught are as yet the only ones known. This was the first 

 deep'sea campaign of tne IVasIiington ; we were all new to such 

 work, and yet a few weeks later, at the meeting of the Third 

 International Geographical Congress at Venice, I was able to 

 lay before the savants there assembled a preliminary report, in 

 which the existence of a deep-sea fauna in the Mediterranean, 

 similar to that of the North Atlantic, but evidently with some 

 special features,' was fully proven. Our greatest depth was then 

 3624 metres, between Sardinia and Sicily ; ihence we dredged 

 up fourteen living animals: an Anomourous Decapod, an 

 Annelid, and several singular small Holothuroids, as yet un- 

 studied.- The two following summers, about a month each 

 year, were dedicated to thalassographic researches in the Medi- 

 terranean by the Italian man-of-war Washington, but the trawl 

 was hardly ever used at the greater depths. The authorities of 

 the navy, and I am sorry to add also those of the Lincei, appeared 

 to have lost all mterest in that fertile field of research. Years 

 a^ter, a little deep-sea trawling was done by the Austrians round 

 about Crete ; they got some good abyssals, amongst which 

 Bathypterois, the singular tentacled fish ; they also found the 

 greatest depth yet recorded in the Mediterranean, over 4000 

 metres. The enlightened Prince of Monaco has also given 

 a trial to some of his wonderful deep-sea traps, always with 

 good results, biit his systematic abyssal researches have all been 

 outside our "Mittelmeer" hitherto. 



I have never lost any opportunity since 1881 of doing my 

 level best to promote the continuance of those thalassographic 

 and especially abyssal researches, which had been so well begun 

 by the Washington ; my last appeal was made to the Third 

 Italian Geographical Congress, which met at Florence last 

 year, my proposals were adopted unanimously in the proper 

 section, and I am beginning to hope that they may soon have a 

 practical result. 



I have not the slightest doubt that the abyssal fauna of the 

 Mediterranean is a rich one, in which not a few novelties will 

 turn up. I have already in my Italian collection about seventy 



NO. 1575, VOL. 61] 



species of typical abyssal fish— Elasmobranchs and Teleostei— 

 and have, besides those already mentioned, described some very 

 singular forms hitherto unknown, and apparently peculiar, such 

 as Baihophtlus and Eretinophorus. 



After all this you will admit that it is rather sad to read in 

 Nature of November 30, 1899, that " the Mediterranean, as is 

 well known, sinks in places to profoundly abyssal depths; the 

 actually greatest depth appears to be 440O metres ; but here no 

 living organisms have been found. It is purely azoic ; the 

 reason for the want of life is, according to the author, the want 

 of oxygen and the abundance of carbonic acid." I should like 

 to see the above assertion proved. 



I may add that Dr. Kobelt, who is a specialist in Malacology, 

 appears to be unacquainted with the abyssal molluscs which I 

 dredged up from great depths in the Mediterranean, and which 

 were described (several as new) shortly after by my lamented 

 friend, J. Gwyn Jeffreys. And at p. 105 of his book he says 

 that Nephrops norvegicus is not found in the Mediterranean. 

 Now in 1 88 1 I dredged up specimens from depths of 765-823 

 metres, in that sea, off the west end of Sicily. 



Dr. Kobelt has a grim way of disposing of the Cetacea of the 

 Mediterranean. These are much better known than he appears to 

 be aware ; I know positively that thirteen species occur, four 

 hexng Mystacoceti ; none are peculiar, and could hardly be ex- 

 pected to present that case, but it is of singular interest that the 

 common porpoise {Phocaena coviniunis) is certainly absent from 

 the Mediterranean, and said to be common in the Black Sea. 

 Our seal {Pelagius inonachiis) is nearly peculiar to the Mediter- 

 ranean and Adriatic, where Phoca vitiih'na never occurs. This 

 hardly looks like " an impoverished gulf of the Atlantic," as Dr. 

 Kobelt is pleased to style our "Mittelmeer" as regards 

 mammals. And, turning to terrestrial mammalia, what of the 

 Mediterranean barrier re Muflons (Ovis tiiitsimon) in Corsica 

 and Sardinia ; Cervus coisicanus, with the same peculiar 

 distribution — these mammals are found in a wild condition 

 nowhere else — and Cervns daina, wild only in Sardinia ? I will 

 allow the Inuiis ecandatus as an importation, but hardly as a 

 native product of the "Rock" of Gibraltar ! 



Certainly I can hardly commend Dr. Kobelt's book to the 

 serious student of zoo-geography ; and I cannot help a bitter re 

 flection when I come to compare mentally the favourable review 

 it has had in these pages, where a few weeks earlier a volume, 

 of which one of the co-authors may be styled the father of zoo- 

 geography, and is emphatically one of the most meritorious of 

 England's zoologists, was treated in a very different style (vide 

 Nature, No. 1549, vol. Ix., p. 217). 



Henry H. Giglioli. 



Royal Zoological Museum, Florence, 

 December 8, 1899. 



Prof. Girlioli appears to blame me for a too favourable 

 review of Dr. Kobelt's recent book. In that review I pointed 

 out some errors, as I thought, of inference as well as of omission ; 

 I still think however that Dr. Kobelt has produced an usefully 

 elaborate and painstaking work, and therefore beg for a short 

 space wherein to reply to such of Dr. Giglioli's criticisms as 

 affect my own review. 



Dr. Giglioli justly comments upon the fact that many deep- 

 sea animals have been dredged in the Mediterranean. But, as 

 I understand him. Dr. Kobelt does not deny this ; he merely 

 observes that the abyssal fauna of the Mediterranean is not 

 special to that sea. Dr. Giglioli himself remarks upon the 

 occurrence of "typical representatives of the North Atlantic 

 deep-sea fauna," which is in accord with what Dr. Kobelt says. 

 That there are some forms peculiar to the Mediterranean does 

 not necessarily invalidate the justice of Dr. Kobelt's generalisa- 

 tion. I do not read Dr. Kobelt as saying that " the abyssal 

 parts of the Mediterranean are azoic." How could I, considering 

 that he gives (p. 115) two lists of deep-sea Mollusca? I under- 

 stood him to mean that one particular locality of 4400 metres 

 in depth happened to be so. In this matter I simply referred 

 to Dr. Kobelt's statement. I neither dissented nor assented. 

 Dr. Giglioli is no doubt right in asserting that the whales of the 

 Mediterranean are not only no: peculiar but could not be 

 expected to be. But if the number with which he is acquainted 

 (13) represent the entire Cetacean fauna of that sea, then Dr. 

 Kobelt is most emphatically right in speaking of it as an im- 

 poverished gulf of the Atlantic. The Reviewer. 



