Geographically it is convenient to describe the Coast fauna of the tropical Atlantic separately from that of the Indo-Pacific ocean. The differences between them, however, are far less numerous and important than between the freshwater or terrestrial faunæ of continental regions. The majority of the principal types are found in both, many of the species being even identical; but the species are far more abundant in the Indo-Pacific than in the Atlantic, owing to the greater extent of the archipelagoes in the former. But for the broken and varied character of the coasts of the West Indies, the shores of the tropical Atlantic would, by their general uniformity, afford but a limited variety of conditions to the development of specific and generic forms, whilst the deep inlets of the Indian ocean, with the varying configuration of their coasts, and the different nature of their bottom, its long peninsulas, and its archipelagoes, and the scattered islands of the tropical Pacific, render this part of the globe the most perfect for the development of fish-life. The fishes of the Indian and Pacific oceans (between the Tropics) are almost identical, and the number of species ranging from the Red Sea and east coast of Africa to Polynesia, even to its westernmost islands, is very great indeed. However, this Indo-Pacific fauna does not reach the Pacific coast of South America. The wide space devoid of islands, east of the Sandwich Islands and the Marquesas group, together with the current of cold water which sweeps northwards along the South American coast, has proved to be a very effectual barrier to the eastward extension of the Indo-Pacific fauna of coast fishes; and, consequently, we find an assemblage of fishes on the American coast and at the Galapagoes Islands, sufficiently distinct to constitute a distinct zoological division. The following list, which contains only the principal genera and groups of coast fishes, will give an idea of the affinity of the tropical Atlantic and Indo-Pacific:--[28] Trop.-Atl. Indo-Pac.