BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WOODS HOLE AND VICINITY. 87 



In its scope this Plymouth census covers an area which "roughly speaking 



may be said to lie within a radius of 15 miles from the laboratory," and "extends from 

 the shore to a depth of 30 to 35 fathoms." The area is thus somewhat smaller than is 

 comprised within the Woods Hole region ° as we have defined it, though considerably 

 greater depths have been included. But the scope of the two catalogues is fairly com- 

 parable, save for the exclusion of vertebrates from the Plymouth list, and some instruc- 

 tive comparisons are possible. In the Plymouth region, as in our own, systematic 

 dredging has been carried on throughout considerable areas. Indeed the biological 

 survey conducted by E. J. Allen* and his colleagues in adjacent portions of the English 

 Channel appears to be one of the most exhaustive investigations extant of the rela- 

 tions between fauna and bottom deposits. 



Commencing with 1885, another group of EngUsh biologists, under the lead of 

 Prof. W. A. Herdman, have been engaged in a systematic study of the fauna of the 

 Irish Sea.*^ Especial attention has been devoted to Liverpool Bay and to the vicinity 

 of the Isle of Man, but a large part of the bottom of the Irish Sea has been explored, 

 and the fauna and bottom deposits have been analyzed with great thoroughness. The 

 results of this work have been communicated from time to time in the Reports of the 

 Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, in the Transactions of the Liverpool Marine 

 Biological Society, in the Reports of the British Association, as well as in a separate 

 series of volumes entitled "Fauna of Liverpool Bay" (no. i-v). A complete list of the 

 species recorded up to that date was published in the report of the British Association 

 for 1896, and a synopsis of this Hst has been included in our comparative table. 



The greater number, at least, of the leading biological stations of the world have 

 devoted more or less attention to the enumeration of the organisms found in their 

 immediate vicinity. This is preeminently true of the Naples station, the pioneer 

 among marine laboratories. One need allude only to the splendid monographs com- 

 prised in the "Fauna und Flora" series, and to the less pretentious faunistic contri- 

 butions published from time to time in the "Mittheilungen" of the station. So far as 

 we know, however, no single inclusive list of species has been published which renders 

 possible, without great labor, a comparison with the fauna of Woods Hole. 



At the Trieste station, maintained by the Austrian Government on the Adriatic 

 Sea, a census of the local marine fauna has for many years past been conducted by 

 Graeffe (1880-1903), and lists of species have appeared comprising most of the chief 

 di\asions of the animal kingdom. Here, as at Plymouth, abundant data are recorded 

 respecting reproduction and general ecology. In the last column of our comparative 

 table we have indicated the number of species recorded by Graeffe for each group of 

 animals. 



It is obvious that these various faunal catalogues differ widely from one another 

 in respect to their scope. Three of them are restricted to the invertebrates, while in 

 only one (that of Woods Hole) are the marine birds listed. Likewise, at Woods Hole 

 alone, among these stations, has any serious attempt been made to list the fish parasites, 

 either the worms or the copepods. On the other hand, the Foraminifera and some 

 other groups have received relatively little attention in our survey. 



a In reality, however, the vast majority of our records relate to a region of much smaller extent. 

 *» Sec Allen (1S99). p. 365-543. 



c Prof. Herdman had some years earlier taken part in a census of the invertebrate faima of the Firth of Forth. (See I^eslie 

 and Herdman, i.sgi.) 



