3.— THE FISHES FOUND IN THE VICINITY OF WOODS HOLE. 
BV HUGH M. SMITH, 
Chief of Division of Scientific Inquiry, U. S. Dish Commission. 
Since the establishment of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries 
in 1871, systematic fish collecting has been carried on at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 
by Commission assistants. In the year named, Prof. Spencer F. Baird studied the 
fish fauna of the region and later published a list of the species then observed which 
has served as a valuable guide in subsequent investigation. 
For more than a quarter of a century almost daily observations, based on collec- 
tions, have been made and recorded, and it may be safely asserted that nowhere else 
in the United States has such long-continued and comprehensive work of this char- 
acter been done. The duty of collecting specimens and recording information has 
fallen chiefly to the lot of Mr. Yinal U. Edwards, of the Fish Commission, to whose 
assiduous labors the principal additions to the fish fauna are due. 
The collection of specimens has been done chiefly with flue-meshed bag seines, 
about 150 feet long, hauled from the shore in harbors and coves and on the beaches 
in Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay. This has been supplemented by the setting 
of fyke nets in suitable localities, by the employment of surface tow nets and dip 
nets, and by the use of hand lines. The traps or pound nets of the commercial fisher- 
men in Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound have also been regularly visited and have 
yielded many interesting specimens. 
Professor Baird’s “List of fishes collected at Woods Hole” 1 has remained the 
only list of the kind. It gives the names of 121 species taken in 1871, two of which 
have since been shown to be identical, leaving 120 species known from the region 
at that time. In the twenty-seven years that have since elapsed the list has been 
augmented almost annually by one or more fishes and has grown to the large 
proportions here shown. 
In the Report of the U. S. Fish Commission for 1882, Dr. Tarleton H. Bean pub- 
lished a “ List of fishes collected by the U. S. Fish Commission at Woods Hole, Mass., 
during the summer of 1881.” It mentious about 114 species, but less than half of this 
number were fishes actually obtained in the vicinity of Woods Hole, the others being- 
deep-sea or offshore fishes, like the tilefish, pole flounder, and hagfish, brought to the 
station by exploring vessels. 
The present list is based on the collections of Woods Hole fishes at the station, 
in the U. S. National Museum, and at the laboratory of the Fish Commission in Wash- 
ington, on the yearly records kept by Mr. Edwards, and on personal observations by 
the writer in 1897. 
Report U. S. Pish. Commission, 1871-2, pp. 823-827. 
