BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WOODS HOLE AND VICINITY. 1 83 



S. I. Smith (1879), likewise, from a study of certain groups of Crustacea, was led to 

 believe that "the fauna from Cape Cod to Labrador is essentially a continuous one, or 

 at least that there are no changes in it comparable with the differences between the 

 fauna south and that north of Cape Cod Bay." 



By the botanists, also, an equally great importance has been attributed to Cape 

 Cod as a division between the floral regions distinguished by them. Harvey (1852) 

 recognized one region north of Cape Cod, "extending probably to Greenland," while 

 his second region extended from Cape Cod to the southward as far as Cape Hatteras. 



Farlow wrote in 1882 : 



It will be seen that Cape Cod is the dividing line between a marked northern and southern flora. 

 In fact the difference between the florae of Massachusetts Bay and Buzzards Bay, which are only a 

 few miles apart, is greater than the difference between those of Massachusetts Bay and the Bay of Fundy 

 or between those of Nantucket and Norfolk. 



Somewhat earlier (1873), in answer to the question "whether northern species do 

 not occur at exposed southern points, as Gay Head and Montauk, and southern species 

 wander northward to Cape Ann," he gave the answer: "Most decidedly, I think, such 

 is not the case." Such an extreme position as this has not, however, been taken by 

 the author of the botanical section of the present report. 



It would be futile, on the basis of our own researches into the fauna of the Woods 

 Hole region, to enter into any extended discussion regarding the position of this region 

 upon the zoogeographical map of the world. a As an adequate preliminary to such a 

 discussion one would need to have a more or less intimate knowledge of the fauna of 

 both shores of the Atlantic from the Arctic Ocean to the Tropics. 



In a table in chapter in (p. 88,89) we have indicated the number of species, repre- 

 senting each of the chief subdivisions of the animal kingdom, which have been recorded 

 from the Woods Hole region and from several other localities where a careful inventory 

 of the fauna has been made. The number of species has been stated, also, which are 

 known to be common to Woods Hole and to eastern Canada, and the number common 

 to Woods Hole and to Plymouth. It will be found that 365 ( + 4?) species are com- 

 mon to the Woods Hole and the Canadian lists. This number represents more than 30 

 per cent of the total number of determined Woods Hole species belonging to groups 

 which were considered in making the Canadian list (i. e., omitting vertebrates and 

 parasitic worms). On the other hand, only 15 per cent of the determined Woods 

 Hole species (belonging to groups for which a comparison is possible) are common to 

 the Plymouth list. A critical comparison of American and European species, and 

 particularly an exhaustive search of the synonymy, would probably increase the latter 

 figure somewhat. 



It is much to be regretted that no list has been prepared with similar care of the 

 fauna of some region lying about as far to the south of Woods Hole as the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence lies to the north. It might be confidently predicted that the percentage 

 of our local species which would appear in such a list would be very greatly in excess 

 of the 30 per cent which are common to Canada. Data bearing upon this phase of 

 the subject will, however, be introduced presently. 



One might perhaps have expected to find a much larger proportion of our Woods 

 Hole species in the vicinity of Plymouth than the 15 per cent which have been recorded. 

 To what degree these differences in fauna are due to differences in physical conditions 



o We fear that much ingenuity has been wasted in the past in an endeavor to distinguish all the various "faunas" represented 

 on a single section of our coast. Such entities are, after all, to a large extent figments of the imagination. 



