560 
NATURE 
[APRIL 15, 1897 
Commission steamer A/batross (1890-93) have been 
reported upon by C. H. Gilbert in the annual reports of 
that Commission. 
The past year has been signalised by the almost 
simultaneous appearance of three works, by which our 
knowledge of the deep-sea fishes of the Atlantic north of 
the equator has been vastly increased, and which we 
propose to notice more particularly in the present 
article. 
By far the most important of those three publications is 
“Oceanic Ichthyology,”! a work devoted to the dis- 
cussion of the material that has been brought together 
since the year 1877, by the naturalists on board of the 
steamers of the United States Fish Commission and Coast 
Survey. It is almost superfluous to remind our readers 
that the merit of having organised the systematic investiga- 
tion of the North-Western Atlantic, and of having con- 
tinued it for so many years, is mainly due to the late 
Prof. Baird, his successor Colonel McDonald, the late 
Dr. Brown Goode, and Prof. Alex. Agassiz. 
In ‘Oceanic Ichthyology” all the species from the 
Atlantic are fully described, or at least diagnosed, unless 
they are long- and well-known forms. Incorporated with 
them are the Bathybial and Pelagic forms inhabiting 
other oceanic areas, and hitherto not found in the 
Atlantic ; but the authors treat of them only in.a more or 
less general fashion, the species being usually mentioned 
by name only. . The illustrations—417 in number on 123 
plates—are very well drawn, though of no particular 
artistic merit, many being reduced copies in outline from 
other works. But the work, as it is, 1s a most valuable 
contribution to the literature of oceanic zoology, not 
merely for the scientific student, who will find in it a mine 
of information, but for all “who go down to the sea in 
ships, and occupy their business in great waters.” If in its 
production attention has been paid to economy, the great 
object has been attained thereby of bringing the work 
within reach of a number of persons to whom the corre- 
sponding parts of the Challenger Reports will be inac- 
cessible. As the edition seems to be as large as the 
publications of the U.S. National Museum usually are, 
and as the work seems to have been distributed with the 
same lavish liberality, there will be no vessel in the U.S. 
navy—we hope no vessel in the navy of any nation— 
engaged in the exploration of the ocean which has not a 
copy on board. 
The American work covers the same ground as 
the two Reports of the Challenger series, which were 
respectively devoted to the Deep-sea and Pelagic fishes, 
and even a part of the Challenger Shore-fishes, as quite 
a number of species living above the 100 fathoms line, 
for instance certain flat-fishes, have been admitted into 
the work. The authors combine both those kinds of 
fishes under one term, viz. Oceanic fishes, which are defined 
as “those deep-sea and pelagic species which dwell in 
the open ocean far from the shore, either at the surface, 
at the bottom, beyond a depth of 500 feet, or, if such fishes 
there be,? the intermediate zones.” By the term deep-sea 
fishes are understood only “those which are found at a 
depth of 1000 feet or more, without reference to the 
question whether or not they also occur in shallower 
1 “Oceanic Ichthyology, a Treatise on the Oceanic and Pelagic fishes of 
the world, based chiefly on the collections made by the Steamers Blake, 
Albatross, and Fish Hawk in the North-Western Atlantic,” with an Atlas 
of 417 figures, by George Brown Goode and Tarleton H. Bean. (Washington, 
1895,* 4to, pp. xxix. + 553. It forms a special volume of the Bulletin 
Series of the United States National Museum, and is also issued as vol. xxii. 
of the Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Haryard College, 
with the same title, but dated ‘‘ Cambridge, U.S.A., September 1896.” * 
2 Called mid-water fishes, Challenger Report, p. 33. 
* Questions of priority are sure to arise hereafter, and therefore it is just as 
well to be certain as to the actual date of publication. In the last letter 
which we received from one of the authors, the late Dr. Brown 
Goode, and which is dated August 9, 1896, he says: ‘‘I am sending you the 
7virst copy of our ‘ Oceanic Ichthyology.’ The copies of the work sent out 
by the Smithsonian Institution reached England towards the end of the 
year. 
NO. 1433, VOL. 55] 
water. The limit of 500 feet is taken for convenience in 
the study of the origin of local deep-sea-faunas.” Pelagic 
fishes are termed ‘‘ those which live far from land and at 
a distance from the bottom, rarely approaching the shore 
except when driven by wind or current. It is those which 
are most closely associated with the plankton.... Some 
of them, which occur at considerable depths, we call 
bathypelagic.” 
We doubt very much whether any appreciable advantage 
is to be gained by this modification of our more simple 
method of classifying the marine fish-fauna. The littoral 
passes into the pelagic and deep-sea-faunas, the pelagic 
into the deep-sea so gradually, that any line of division 
that may be proposed, must appear more or less artificial ; 
and this obstacle to classification is not overcome by 
increasing the number of zones. I believe no malaco- 
logist of the present day maintains the eight zones, 
proposed by E. Forbes ; with the increase of our know- 
ledge his boundary-lines were wiped out, although they 
seemed fully justified at the time when that great genius 
generalised from the wealth of his own original observa- 
tions. In the Challenger and other Keports, the 100 
fathoms line has been selected as the upper limit for the 
deep-sea-fauna, because we have the positive knowledge, 
that at that line some of the abyssal conditions obtain, 
viz. absence of light, absence of surface-disturbance, 
absence of plant-life. Itis obvious that these condi- 
tions must operate upon organisms permanently living 
under them, although many surface forms descend below 
that line, without any part of their organisation being 
affected by their temporary sojourn. One of the principal 
factors which will have to be taken into consideration in 
determining zones of distribution will be, as is gene- 
rally admitted, temperature ; and since we have been 
placed in possession of a great number of data of the 
temperatures of certain depths in definite localities, 
perhaps the attempt would not be premature to ascer- 
tain the zones for that portion of the bathybial fauna 
which is known to live at the bottom. As to the so-called 
mid-water fishes, the study of their distribution cannot be 
attempted until some means of capture is devised, by 
which the question of their existence, and of the limits of 
their vertical range is definitely settled. 
As far as fishes are concerned, a distinction between 
pelagic forms and fishes of the plankton cannot be main- 
tained with any advantage. But whether sucha distinction 
be made or not, it is difficult to understand on what 
grounds the authors have omitted every mention of the 
important group of flying fishes (#xocetus), whilst the 
dolphins (Coryphena) and other similar pelagic fishes 
find a place in their list. 
An idea of the great labour expended in the preparation 
of this work may be gathered from the number of species 
treated therein. We have not counted the species de- 
scribed or referred to, but the authors state in their 
introduction that “more than 600 (?) different kinds of 
fish have been obtained from the depth of 1ooo feet and 
more ”; further, in the list of “new species” they enumerate | 
153 species, chiefly from the Western Atlantic!: a number 
which, taken without critical examination of the species, 
is but little less than that of the species described as 
new in the corresponding Challenger Reports. 
Among the new species are a number of very singular 
forms. Although many of them represent, according 
to the view of the authors, types of distinct families, the 
majority are, at any rate, closely related to previously 
known genera, 
The vertical and horizontal distribution is given under 
the head of each individual species, very often in great 
detail, for which the authors deserve our best thanks. 
But they would have added to the usefulness of their 
1 Singularly, Psychrolutes paradoxus, described some thirty years ago 
from the Pacific, is also included in this list of ‘‘ new species” ; on the other 
hand, others are omitted. 
