MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 26 
different depths, as I attempted to do on the “Blake,” and have done 
more successfully on the present trip on the “ Albatross.” It is impor- 
tant to give at the same time the depth of the bottom and the distance 
from land, both most essential factors, to which neither Chun nor Hensen 
has paid sufficient attention. 
In discussing the value of Chun’s observations made on his way to 
the Canaries, we should remember that of the three casts with the closing 
net one was taken at a moderate distance off shore from Cape Finistére. 
The only strictly oceanic cast was his No. V., Lat. 34° 18! N., Long. 15° 
34’ W., and even that, if plotted, will be found remarkably close to the 
bank extending in a northeasterly trend from Madeira. This bank as 
marked is inside the 1,500 fathom line, and has many points the depths 
of which are near 500 fathoms. But leaving this out of consideration, 
his catch at that point consisted only of a single Copepod ! and a Phaeo- 
daria, and even these may have come from near the bottom. At any 
rate, we can hardly consider such a catch as indicating the presence at 
that depth of an abundant pelagic fauna. 
As for the work aecomplished by Chun at the Canaries, that strikes 
me as vitiated by the same disturbing factors to which I have already 
alluded. It can certainly not be called oceanic. The most distant of the 
Canary Islands is not more than 225 nautical miles from the coast, and 
the nearest less than forty, so that the pelagic fauna is under the influ- 
ence, of all the disturbing elements of a coast line within a short distance. 
The very fact that so much surface pelagic material accumulates around 
the islands is the best evidence of this. We are therefore still left, so 
far as the distribution in depth of the pelagic fauna is concerned, to the 
few observations I made on the “Blake” (pace Haeckel), to that one 
of Chun mentioned above, to those of Hensen in the “ National " expe- 
dition, and to those of the last expedition on the “ Albatross.” I am 
leaving out as not conclusive those of the “ Vettor Pisani.” The positive 
results of all these hauls clearly indicate that the bulk of the pelagic 
fauna is limited to a depth not exceeding 200-250 fathoms, and that 
then it rapidly decreases. 
1 The material collected by Chun was worked up by Claus in Arbeiten aus dem 
Zool. Inst. d. Univ. Wien, IX., 1890, I. p. 1. Of the new species described, “ Die 
Gattungen und Arten der mediterranen und atlantischen Halocypriden,” six said 
to have been collected at 1,500 and 1,000 meters were also collected at the surface. 
No less than nine species have a wide geographical distribution, and those brought 
up from deep water in the proximity of land or near the Canaries of course add 
nothing to our knowledge of their oceanic bathymetrical distribution. 
