954 A Brief Biography of the Halibut. (October, 
of the Arctic ocean, but it has been observed on both sides 
of the North cape, in East and West Denmark, and from the 
North cape, latitude 71°, south along the entire western line 
of the Scandinavian peninsula, in the Skager Rack and Cattegat, 
though not, so far as I can learn, in the Baltic sea. The halibut 
is occasionally seen in the southern part of the North sea and 
in the English channel, but never, in the Eastern Atlantic, south 
of latitude 50°. There is yet some question whether it is found 
in the south of Ireland, though some of the largest individuals 
` recorded from Great Britain have been taken in the Irish sea, 
off the Isle of Man. 
On the Pacific coast the halibut, which has besi shown by Dr. 
Bean to be identical with that of the Atlantic, ranges from the Far- 
allones islands northward to Bering straits, becoming more be 
dant northward. “Its center of abundance,” says Bean, “is in 
the Gulf of Alaska, particularly about Kodiak, the Alexander 
archipelago and the Shumagins. Large halibut are numerous 
about the Seal islands, but the small ones have been killed by the 
seals. I have heard from good authority of their capture as far 
north as Saint Lawrence bay, near East cape, in Siberia. It has 
several times been reported from off the heads of Marcus bay, 
Siberia.” It is occasionally taken off San Francisco and about 
Humboldt bay. In the Straits of Fuca and in the deeper chan- 
nels about Puget sound it is taken in considerable numbers. A 
large halibut bank exists in the mouth of the Straits of Fuca, 
about nine miles from Cape Flattery in a north-westerly direc- 
tion, and the capture of this fish is an Soren industry to 
the coast Indians, 
The halibut is emphatically a cold-water species. That it should 
‘range nine or ten degrees farther south on the American than 
on the European coast, is quite. in accordance with the general 
law of the distribution of fish-life in the Atlantic; indeed, it is 
only in winter that halibut are known to approach the shore to 
-~ the south of Cape Cod, and it is safe to say that the temperature 
_ of the water in which they are at present most frequently taken 
is never, or rarely, higher than 45°, seldom above 35° and most 
often in the neighborhood of 32°. Its geographic range cor- 
responds closely to that of the codfish, with which it is almost 
riably associated, the cod is, however, less dependent upon the 
ce of very cold water, and in the Western Atlantic is found 
