86 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



sections, the first of which comprises a discussion of the fauna, according to particular 

 habitats and types of bottom (e. g., "rocky shores of the bays and sounds," "muddy 

 bottoms off the open coast," etc.), the second being constituted by the catalogue or 

 annotated list, together -with a considerable number of descriptions and figures. The 

 former section contains an extensive mine of ecological facts of interest and value, and 

 despite the somewhat loose and desultory method of treatment the work will remain a 

 classic in American marine ecology. In all, over 650 species were listed by these authors, 

 a considerable number of these being described as new to science. The range of each 

 species, so far as known, was stated, along with its bathymetric distribution and other 

 facts in its natural history. 



In preparing our own catalogue of the fauna, we have incorporated all the species 

 recorded from the "Report upon the Invertebrate Animals of Vineyard Sound," excepting 

 such as are plainly extralimital, or such as are believed to have been wrongly identified. 

 A detailed comparison of the two lists furnishes some evidence of a certain amount of 

 change in the composition of our fauna during the past 40 years. Examples of such 

 changes will be discussed in their proper place. 



Since the publication of the report of Verrill and Smith no work has appeared upon 

 American marine ecology of a magnitude at all comparable with it. Annotated lists 

 of species have been published, which have amended and extended the records of that 

 report; but these, for the most part, have been restricted to single divisions of the animal 

 kingdom and have given the bare data of distribution, with but slight comment. 

 Probably the most comprehensive of these recent annotated lists dealing with the 

 marine fauna of any portion of the Atlantic coast of the American continent is 

 Whiteaves's "Catalogue of the Marine Invertebrata of Eastern Canada." This work 

 lists more than a thousand species of invertebrate animals, and is said to consist "of 

 a systematic list of all the species from the eastern Canadian seaboard that have 

 been so far identified or described, with notes on their geographical distribution and 

 bathymetrical range." 



In order to compare the fauna of these two sections of the American coast, belong- 

 ing to two recognized zoogeographical "regions," we have indicated in our table the 

 number of species belonging to each major group, which are common to the Woods 

 Hole and the Canadian lists. These figures are probably, in some cases, too low, owing 

 to our failure to recognize the same species under two different names. 



Ever since the days of Edward Forbes the exploration of English waters by means 

 of the dredge has been actively prosecuted, and the fauna of various sections of the coast 

 has been catalogued. In recent years the two principal centers for English faunistic 

 studies have been Plymouth and Liverpool. Commencing with the foundation of the 

 Plymouth laboratory in 1887, the waters of that region have been diligently explored, 

 and from time to time lists have been published comprising the entire known fauna 

 and flora or particular groups of organisms. The last of these inclusive lists was 

 published in 1904 and embraced all previous records, so far as they were believed to 

 be authentic. 6 Over 1,200 species of invertebrate animals are catalogued in this 

 report, which includes copious notes upon local distribution, reproduction, and gen- 

 eral ecology. 



a These may be found in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association, from 1887 to the present time. 

 b Even this list has been supplemented to some extent. 



