A Guide to the Study of Fishes, Volume 1 (of 2)Jordan, David Starr
History
A Guide to the Study of Fishes, Volume 1 (of 2)
Jordan, David Starr
Fishes; Fishes -- Bibliography; Zoology -- History
Superior, as compared with that of Lake Michigan. The majority of
our species cannot endure the cold. In general, therefore, cold or
Northern waters contain fewer species than Southern waters do, though
the number of individuals of any one kind may be greater. This is shown
in all waters, fresh or salt. The fisheries of the Northern seas are
more extensive than those of the tropics. There are more fishes there,
but are far less varied in kind. The writer once caught seventy-five
species of fishes in a single haul of the seine at Key West, while on
Cape Cod he obtained with the same net but forty-five species in the
course of a week's work. Thus it comes that the angler, contented with
many fishes of few kinds, goes to Northern streams to fish, while the
naturalist goes to the South.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.--_Peristedion miniatum_ Goode and Bean, a
deep-red colored fish of the depths of the Gulf Stream.]
But in most streams the difference in latitude is insignificant,
and the chief differences in temperature come from differences in
elevation, or from the distance of the waters from the colder source.
Often the lowland waters are so different in character as to produce
a marked change in the quality of their fauna. These lowland waters
may form a barrier to the free movements of upland fishes; but
that this barrier is not impassable is shown by the identity of the
fishes in the streams[102] of the uplands of middle Tennessee with
those of the Holston and French Broad. Again, streams of the Ozark
Mountains, similar in character to the rivers of East Tennessee, have
an essentially similar fish fauna, although between the Ozarks and the
Cumberland range lies an area of lowland bayous, into which such fishes
are never known to penetrate. We can, however, imagine that these
upland fishes may be sometimes swept down from one side or the other
into the Mississippi, from which they might ascend on the other side.
But such transfers certainly do not often happen. This is apparent
from the fact that the two faunas[103] are not quite identical, and in
some cases the same species are represented by perceptibly different
varieties on one side and the other. The time of the commingling of
these faunæ is perhaps now past, and it may have occurred only when the
climate of the intervening regions was colder than at present.
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