THE WEST INDIAN FAUNA. 13 
In the experience of the “ Blake” the greatest wealth of 
speeimens, or the principal treasures of the expedition, were not 
dredged from the deepest waters of West Indian or Atlantie 
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 Frederichstzed, off 
the Tortugas where the Gulf Stream strikes the southern extrem- 
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 Pourtalés 
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 Pourtalés Plateau, with its predominance 
of corals, Rhizocrinus, and starfishes, and those found in the 
caleareous ooze of the trough of the Gulf Stream (lamelli- 
branchiates, holothurians, ete.) ; and again in the association of 
the masses of Gorgoni:e, Salenie, and Terebratule, 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 Phormosome, of Asthenoso- 
mæ, and Hyalonem&, and those of the forests of Pentaerini 
