3 °S 
AMERICAN FISHES . 
be identical with that of the Atlantic, ranges from the Farallone Islands 
northward to Behring Straits, becoming more abundant northward. Its 
centre of abundance is in the Gulf of Alaska, particularly about Kodiak, 
the Alexander Archipelago, and the Shumagins. It is occasionally taken 
off San Francisco and about Humboldt Bay. In the Straits of Fuca and in 
the deeper channels about Puget Sound it is taken in considerable 
numbers. 
The Halibut is emphatically a cold-water species. That it ranges nine 
or ten degrees further 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°, and seldom higher than 35°, 
and often in the neighborhood of 32 0 . Its geographic range corresponds 
closely to that of the codfish, with which it is almost invariably associated, 
though the cod is less dependent upon the presence of very cold water, and 
in the Western Atlantic is found four or five degrees—in the Eastern 
Atlantic at least two—nearer the Equator, while the range of the two 
species to the north is probably, though not certainly, known to be limited 
relatively in about the same degree. In the same manner the Halibut 
appears to extend its wanderings further out to sea, and in deeper and 
colder water than the cod. Although observations on this point have 
necessarily been imperfect, it seems to be a fact, that while cod are very 
rarely found upon the edge of the continental slope of North America, 
beyond the 250-fathom line, Halibut are present there in abundance. 
The ngme of this species is quite uniform in the regions where it is 
known, though of course subject to certain variations in the languages of 
the different countries, and its characteristic features are so unmistakable 
that it is rarely confounded with other species, the only fish for which it is 
ever mistaken seeming to be the Turbot of the European coast, with which 
it sometimes interchanges names. In Scotland it is said that the Halibut 
is frequently called the Turbot, and Yarrell has expressed the opinion that 
in instances where it had been claimed that Halibut had been taken in 
the south of Ireland the Turbot was the species actually referred to. 
“ Halibut ” and “ Holibut ” are words which are as old as the English 
language. In Germany it is called “ Heilbutt ” or “ Heiligebutt ”; in 
