202 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
From the relatively cool waters of Pensacola and Fernandina the temperature 
gradually rises southward until we reach the Keys, where it becomes noticeably higher 
on account of the Gulf Stream as it sweeps through the Florida Straits and up the 
eastern coast. Nowhere else on our coast is the influence of the Gulf Stream so great, 
and nowhere else does the fauna of tropical seas extend so far north. Indeed, among 
the Florida Keys we find the nearest approach to tropical conditions to be found any- 
where in the United States. 
It is remarkable that the rich fish fauna of Florida did not attract the attention 
of students earlier than it did. Prior to 1870, scarcely anything was known concern- 
ing the fishes of the State. So far as we have been able to learn from an examination 
of ichthyological literature the earliest references to Florida fishes are those of Mark 
Gatesby in 1754, LeSueur in 1824, and Holbrook in 1855 and 1856. Catesby’s Natu- 
ral History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, a mammoth work of two 
volumes, royal folio, with 220 colored plates, contains a few references to Florida 
fishes, but this was before the beginning of binomial nomenclature (which dates from 
1758), and no names were given. In 1824 Messrs. Maelure, Say, Ord, and Peale, of 
the Philadelphia Academy, all great men in the early history of science in America, 
made a trip to Florida and brought back with them dried specimens of one ray and 
one skate. These were described in the same year by LeSueur as Baia sabina and 
Baia desmarestia, but are now known as Dasyatis sabina (one of the most common rays 
on the Florida coasts) and Baja eglanteria , the brier skate, less common than the other 
species. These, so far as we have been able to learn, are the first fishes ever described 
from Florida localities. 
In 1856 Dr. John Edward Holbrook published an “Account of several species of 
fishes observed in Florida, Georgia, etc.” In this paper 6 species were credited to the 
St. Johns River, 5 species of suufishes and 1 darter, all of which were described as 
new, but not one of which proved to be so. In 1855 Holbrook published the first 
edition of his Ichthyology of South Carolina, and in 1860 the second edition of the 
same work appeared. In this work 12 species are referred to definite Florida locali- 
ties in the first edition and 22 in the second, one of the latter (JEsox ravenelli=Lucius 
americanus) being described as new. 
In the twenty years following the appearance of the first edition of Holbrook’s 
Ichthyology little or nothing was added to our knowledge of the fishes of Florida. Not 
until 1878 was any serious or considerable study made of the fishes of this State. In 
that year Mr. Silas Stearns, of the Pensacola Fish and Ice Company, began sending- 
specimens of Florida fishes to the U. S. National Museum. The first specimen was 
described by Goode & Bean as the type of a new species, the blanquillo ( Gaulolatilus 
microps ), a near relative of the noted tilefish, whose sudden appearance in myriads in 
the Gulf Stream about the same time and whose as sudden disappearance in 1882 
remain to this day among the marvels of the natural history of fishes. 
In the winter of 1877-78 Mr. Stearns began a most active and intelligent study 
of the distribution and habits of the fishes of the Gulf coast of Florida. Particular 
attention was paid to the food-fishes and the fishes found on the Snapper Banks. 
Specimens of the various species were sent to the National Museum, which formed 
the basis of numerous important papers by Goode & Beau, Jordan, and Stearns. 
I wish to call special attention to the work done by Mr. Stearns. It was of very 
great importance and deserves more than a passing notice. During the few leisure 
hours of an active business life Mr. Stearns found time to make a study of the natural 
