BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WOODS HOLE AND VICINITY. 15 



dredging work, and lists of the aggregate fauna and flora at these points were not pre- 

 pared; but definite records of occurrence were obtained in some cases wliere previously 

 only general statements had been given, and the range of some species was extended in 

 an interesting manner. 



The territory covered by the "census" was the entire "Woods Hole Region," to use 

 a rather indefinite and much misused expression. This terra, in the present work, is 

 emploved in a quite arbitrary sense, as judged from the viewpoint of zoogeography. 

 Generally speaking, the Woods Hole Region has been held to include the entire area of 

 sea and of littoral readily available for collecting purposes from Woods Hole as a base. 

 Of course such an area comprises a great diversity of conditions, and supports a most 

 diverse fauna and flora. In compiling the census the criterion generally employed in 

 admitting or rejecting species was as follows: Records were admitted from points 

 extending from Newport on the west to Chatham and Sankaty Head upon the east. 

 .Narragansett Bay, except that portion in the immediate vicinity of Newport, was 

 excluded; but the whole of Buzzards Bay, Vineyard Sound, and Nantucket Sound were 

 included, together with the ocean shores of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket and the 

 adjacent ocean area southward to the 20-fathom line. It is not a part of our present 

 purpose to define and delimit the Woods Hole Region for future investigators. There is, 

 of course, no such region geographically speaking. Unfortunately this term, and even 

 the name Woods Hole itself, have been used by various writers in an extremely mis- 

 leading sense. Certain species have been listed in published records as taken at "Woods 

 Hole" which we know to have come from considerable distances. In the case of certain 

 fishes, indeed, it is quite evident that they were bathysmal species, collected at great 

 depths and far from land. 



The second part of our undertaking comprises the systematic dredging operations 

 which were conducted during the summers of 1903, 1904, and 1905, together with 

 supplementary work carried on during the four following seasons. This project has 

 been very generally referred to as the "Biological Survey of the Woods Hole Region," 

 and this term is a convenient one, provided that too much is not implied by it; for 

 this has obviously been a biological survey in a rather limited sense. Neither the 

 plankton nor the exclusively littoral (intertidal) fauna and flora are included within 

 the scope of the operations in question, though abundant data relating to these 

 are, of course, included in the "census." 



The Sun-ey, in this restricted sense, has been confined to Vineyard Sound and 

 Buzzards Bay, with the exception of one day's dredging at Crab Ledge, near Chatham. 

 The Crab Ledge records, having been made with nearly the same degree of care and 

 thoroughness as those made in strictly local waters, have been included within the 

 limits of the present report, though otherwise they would not have been regarded as 

 relevant to it. As will appear later, this procedure has made possible some most inter- 

 esting and instructive comparisons. 



During the early explorations of Verrill in the waters adjacent to Woods Hole 

 little system, or at least little regularity, seems to have been employed in the choice of 

 dredging stations. Certain lines were followed, it is true, whose position appears to 

 have been known with some definiteness, and the dredge was lowered at more or less 

 regular intervals. These stations all appear upon the chart which accompanies his 

 report (The Invertebrate Animals of Vineyard Sound) ; but there is little if any reference 



