A BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE WATERS OF 

 WOODS HOLE AND VICINITY. 



Section I.— PHYSICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL. 



By FRANCIS B. SUMNER, RAYMOND C. OSBURN, and LEON J. COLE. 



Chapter I.— INTRODUCTION. 



One of the necessary conditions for the intelligent understanding of a nation's 

 population, its resources and its needs, is the taking of an adequate census. So also 

 we can have no proper appreciation of the resources of the sea, and of the means by 

 which we may develop and conserve them without first making an accurate inventory 

 of its inhabitants. This view was stated quite explicitly by Baird (1873, p. xiii) in 

 his first report as Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, and has been the assumption 

 upon which much of the scientific work of the United States Fish Commission has been 

 based. Accordingly it was appropriate that the first annual report of the commission 

 should contain not only a Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast of North America, 

 so far as then known, but an extended report upon the invertebrate animals of one 

 important section of the coast, and a list of the marine algae inhabiting this same region. 



The preparation of these detailed lists of the animals and plants occupying regions 

 of greater or less extent has long been the favorite occupation of a certain class of natu- 

 ralists. Such lists abound in the annals of botany and zoology. It is only thus, indeed, 

 that we have learned how our planet is populated. The cumulative labors, first of 

 individuals, then of scientific organizations and of governments, have given us the data 

 from which to formulate the laws of geographical distribution. In the beginning we 

 have the bare facts of occurrence; then correlations are established between given con- 

 ditions of environment and the presence of given species or varieties; finally we are 

 brought within striking distance of the great central problem of the origin of the species. 



So much for the scientific aspect of the case. On the practical side, faunistic and 

 floristic studies need offer no apology for their existence. They have, indeed, formed 

 a part of the established policy of our Government for many years. The Department 

 of Agriculture has long maintained a biological survey of the land animals and plants 

 of this continent, while our Bureau of Fisheries, following the example of its illustrious 

 founder, has slowly but steadily been conducting a census of the inhabitants of our seas 

 and lakes. Truly, these creatures are not all fit for food, nor indeed for any commercial 

 purpose whatever — though we must add that there are probably many more animals 

 and plants of economic value than we now realize. But the life of the earth is an inter- 

 related whole. One species stands in relation to another as its enemy, prey, food, 



