The fishes of the great depths are soft in substance, some of them blind, some of them with very large eyes, all black in color, and very many are provided with luminous spots or areas. A large body of species of fishes are semi-bathybial, inhabiting depths of 20 to 100 fathoms, showing many of the characters of shore fishes, but far more widely distributed. Many of the remarkable cases of wide distribution of type belong to this class. In moderate depths red colors are very common, corresponding to the zone of red algæ, and the colors in both cases are perhaps determined from the fact that the red rays of light are the least refrangible.
A certain number of species are both marine and fresh water, inhabiting estuaries and brackish waters, while some more strictly marine ascend the rivers to spawn. In none of these cases can any hard and fast line be drawn, and some groups which are shore fishes in one region will be represented by semi-bathybial or fluviatile forms in another.[26]
Littoral Fishes.—The shore fishes are in general the most highly specialized in their respective groups, because exposed to the greatest variety of selecting conditions and of competition. Their distribution in space is more definite than that of the pelagic and bassalian types, and they may be more definitely assigned to geographical areas.
Distribution of Littoral Fishes by Coast-lines.—Their distribution is best indicated, not by realms or areas, but as forming four parallel series corresponding to the four great north and south continental outlines. Each of these series may be represented as beginning at the north in the Arctic fauna, practically identical in each of the four series, actually identical in the two Pacific series. Passing southward, forms are arranged according to temperature. One by one in each series, the Arctic types disappear; subarctic, temperate, and semi-tropical types take their places, giving way in turn to south-temperate and Antarctic forms. The distribution of these is modified by barriers and by currents, yet though genera and species may be different, each isotherm is represented in each series by certain general types of fishes.
Fig. 176.—Green-sided Darter, Diplesion blennioides Rafinesque. Clinch River. Family Percidæ.
Passing southward the two American series, the East Atlantic and the East Pacific, pass on gradually through temperate to Antarctic types. These are analogous to those of the Arctic, and in a few cases they are generally identical. The West Pacific (East Asian) series is not a continuous line on account of the presence of Australia, the East Indies, and Polynesia. The irregularities of these regions make a number of subseries, which break up the simplicity expressed in the idea of four parallel series. Yet the fauna of Polynesia is strictly East Indian, modified by the omission or alteration of species, and that of Australia is Indian at the north, and changes to the southward much as that of Africa does. In its marine fishes, it does not constitute a distinct "realm." The East Atlantic (Europe-African) series follows the same general lines of change as that of the West Atlantic. It extends, however, only to the South Temperate Zone, developing no Antarctic elements. The relative shortness of Africa explains in large degree, as already shown, the similarity between the tropical elements in the two Old-World series, as the similarity in tropical elements in the two American series must be due to a former depression of the connecting Isthmus. The practical unity of the Arctic marine fauna needs no explanation in view of the present shore lines of the Arctic Ocean.
Minor Faunal Areas.—The minor faunal areas of shore fishes may be grouped as follows:
East Atlantic.