TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 



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of the ' Challenger ' one, and it was not down for more than twenty minutes I noted 

 down the species observed, and I tilled two bottles with vindetermined stuff' which 

 my assistant, Mr. Andrew Scott, and I examined the following day in the labora- 

 tory. Our list comes to at least 112 species, belonging to at least 103 genera.* I 

 counted 120 duplicate specimens which, added to 112, gives 232 individuals, but 

 there may well have been 100 more. This experience, then, is very different from 

 Murray's, and gives far larger numbers in every respect — specimens, species, and 

 genera — than even the ' Challenger ' deep-water haul quoted. I append my list of 

 species,'- and practised marine zoologists will, I think, see at a glance that it is 

 nothinij- out of the way, that it is a fairly ordinary assemblage of not uncommon 

 animals such as is frequently met with when dredging in the ' coralline ' zone. I 

 am sure that I have taken better netfuls than this both in the Irish Sea and on the 

 West of Scotland. 



In order to get another case on different ground, not of my own choosing, on 

 the first occasion after the publication of Dr Murray's volumes when I was out 

 witnessing the trawling observations of the Lancashire Sea Fisheries steamer ' John 

 Fell,' I counted, with the help of my assistant, Mr. Andrew Scott, and the men on 

 board, the restilts of the first haul of the shrimp trawl. It was taken at the 

 mouth of the Mersey estuary, inside the Liverpool bar, on what the naturalist would 

 consider very unfavourable ground, with a bottom of muddy sand, at a depth of 

 6 fathoms. The shrimp trawl (1 i in. mesh) was down for one hour, and it brought 

 up over seventeen thousand specimens referable to at least 39 species,^ belonging to 

 34 genera. These numbers have been exceeded on many other hauls taken in the 

 ordinary course of work by the Fisheries steamer in Liverpool Bay — for example, 

 on this occasion the fish numbered 5,943, and I have records of hauls on which 

 the fish numbered over 20,000, and tbe total catch of individual animals must 

 have been nearly 50,000. Can any of Dr. Murray's hauls on the deep mud beat 

 these figures ? 



The conclusion, then, at which I arrive in regard to the distribution of animals 

 in deep water and in water shallower than 50 fathoms, from my own experience 

 and an examination of the ' Challenger ' results, is in some respects the reverse of 

 Murray's. I consider that there are more species and more individuals in the 

 shallower waters, that the deep mud as dredged has a poor fauna, that the 

 ' Coralline ' zone has a much richer one, and that the ' Laminarian 

 there is vegetable as well as animal food, has probably the richest of all. 



In order to come to as correct a conclusion as possible on the matter I have 

 consulted several other naturalists in regard to the smaller groups of more or less 

 free-swimming Crustacea, such as Copepoda and Ostracoda, which I thought might 

 possibly be in considerable numbers over the mud. I have asked three well-known 

 specialists on such Crustaceans — viz.. Professor G. S. Brady, F.R.S., Mr. Thomas 



' It is interesting, in connection with Darwin's opinion that an animal's most 

 formidable competitors in the struggle for existence are those of its own kind or 

 closely allied forms, to notice the Isrge proportion of genera to species in such liauls. 

 I have noticed this in many lists, and it certainly suggests that closely related forms 

 are comparatively rarely taken together. 



' See Apjjendix, p. 713. 



zone, where 



I 



' Solea vulf/arls 

 Plcitronecteg platessa 

 P. limanda 

 Oadus morrliua 

 G. onglefiiuis 

 6. merlangnu 

 Chipea Hjrratta 

 C. harerujus 

 Tracldnus rijjera 

 Agoniis catapla-actus 

 Gohuis mi/iutus 

 Jlaia clavata 

 R. maculatUf 

 1895. 



3fi/tiliis ediilis 

 Tellina tenuis 

 Mavtra stnltoriim 

 Fitsus antlquus 

 CarcinuK miriuis 

 Porfwnus, sp. 

 Eupatpirui hernliardus 

 Crang&n rultyarig 

 Sacculiiia, sp. 

 Some Amphipoda 

 Lonplpcdia coronata 

 Eetinosoma ajiinij/es 

 Sunaristes jMffuri 



Bactrjlopiis rostratus 

 Cletodcs li mi cola 

 Caligns, sp. 

 Plustra foliacea 

 Aphrodite aeideatci 

 Pectinai-ia bclgicio 

 Nereis, sp. 

 Asterias ruhms 

 Ifj/dractinia ec/ii'Uifa 

 Sertularia abktina 

 Jfi/drallinama falcata 

 A nrelia aurita 

 Cijaiuca, sp. 



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