THE WEST INDIAN FAUNA. 13 



In the experience of the " Blake " the greatest wealth of 

 specimens, or the principal treasures of the expedition, were not 

 dredged from the deepest waters of West Indian or Atlantic 

 areas. It was mainly upon the continental slopes, near the 

 five-hundred-fathom line, where food is most abundant, or the 

 slopes are washed by favorable currents, that the richest har- 

 vests came up in the trawl. Several places really phenom- 

 enal from their richness were met with by the " Blake," off 

 Havana, to the westward of St. Vincent, off Frederichstaed, off 

 the Tortug-as where the Gulf Stream strikes the southern extrem- 



o 



ity of the Florida Reef, and off Cape Hatteras. We might also 

 name the remarkable spots found by the " Challenger " off 

 Japan and off Zamboanga, and the rich dredgings of Pourtales 

 on the plateau which bears his name. We may safely say that 

 the abundance of life in the many favored localities of the 

 ocean far surpasses that of the richest terrestrial faunal districts. 

 The most thickly populated tropical jungle does not compare in 

 wealth of animal or vegetable life with a marine district such as 

 a coral reef, or some of the assemblages mentioned above. 



It will be impossible to give a good picture of the animals 

 which make up the fauna characteristic of certain well-defined 

 regions until we have the completion of the reports by the dif- 

 ferent specialists who have kindly consented to work up the 

 collections of the " Blake." We may, however, call attention 

 in a general way to their geographical and bathymetrical dis- 

 tribution. There can be no greater difference, for instance, 

 than that which exists between the animals associated in deep 

 water on the rocky bottom upon the southern slope of the 

 Florida Reef, on the Pourtales Plateau, with its predominance 

 of corals, Rhizocrinus, and starfishes, and those found in the 

 calcareous ooze of the trough of the Gulf Stream (lamelli- 

 branchiates, holothurians, etc.) ; and again in the association of 

 the masses of Gorgonise, Saleniae, and Terebratulse, off the north 

 coast of Cuba, brought up in a single haul of the trawl. Nor 

 can there be a greater contrast than between the inhabitants of 

 the pteropod ooze in deep water off the west end of Santa 

 Cruz, with its preponderance of Phormosomae, of Asthenoso- 

 mse, and Hyalonemse, and those of the forests of Pentacrini 



