360 BULLETIN OF THE BTJBEAU OF FISHERIES 



We have never taken Cyanea smaller than 2 inches in diameter out in the open 

 gulf, except as I have just noted; but by the time they have passed that size and 

 have scattered farther from their birth places in shoal water, we have either cap- 

 tured them or seen them floating on the surface on many occasions and at many 

 localities in the gulf. Not only is Cyanea.a familiar object to fishermen, for it often 

 swarms in the more open bays from Cape Sable to Cape Cod, though never in our 

 experience in the river mouths and other estuarine and slightly brackish situations 

 where Aurclia so abounds (p. 362), but it is dreaded by swimmers with good cause 

 because of its venomous tentacles. On July 29, 1921, for example, hundreds of per- 

 sons suffered more or less irritation of the skin from touching red jellyfish while 

 bathing at Nantasket Beach near the mouth of Boston Harbor," and the tentacles 

 retain their irritating power for some time after the medusas strand on the beach. 



Most of our locality records for Cyanea (fig. 100) have been from within or 

 at most only a few miles without the 100-meter contour, which corresponds to 

 its neritic nature. It is universal all around the coastal belt of the gulf, the ab- 

 sence of definite records along western Nova Scotia mirroring the fact that we have 

 made no summer hauls there and not a scarcity of Cyanea. No doubt its range 

 also covers the whole of Georges Bank, though the western part of the latter seems 

 more prolific in Cyanea than the eastern. The Grampus found rather small speci- 

 mens (2 to 4 inches in diameter) so plentiful on July 23, 1916 (station 10348), that 

 one half hour's haul with the 1-meter net at 30 meters depth yielded 3 gallons of 

 them. It is probable that Cyanea also occurs on Browns Bank, though we did not 

 chance to find it there on our June and July visits. 100 



Cyanea shows little tendency to drift out into deep water in the northern and 

 northeastern parts of the gulf east of Cape Elizabeth, but we have taken (or seen) it 

 at several stations well out in the basin off Massachusetts Bay and thence south- 

 ward toward Georges Bank, its distribution agreeing in this with that of other neritic 

 animals as well as with the general distribution of salinity. The presence of a consider- 

 able number of rather small (2 to 3 inches) Cyanea floating over the deep basin in longi- 

 tude 67° 30' W., some 15 miles north of Georges Shoals on June 25, 1915, is likewise 

 worth noting, though it is not clear whether they came from the neighboring bank 

 or from Cashes Ledge to the north, which is likewise shallow enough to serve as a 

 nursery for this jellyfish. There is nothing in our records to suggest that Cyanea 

 disperses any more widely over the central portion of the gulf in autumn than in 

 summer, and although it is so widespread in the peripheral zone of the gulf and so 

 plentiful at times near shore, we have never found it in any abundance more than 

 a few miles outside the outer headlands except on the offshore banks as just noted. 



Cyanea hugs the coast of the Gulf of Maine much more closely than it does the 

 Norwegian coast, where it may drift as much as 250 miles out to sea with the current 

 by September (Damas, 1909). We found Cyanea similarly restricted to the coastal 

 zone within the 100-meter contour from New York southward to Chesapeake Bay 

 during our summer cruises of 1913 (a warm year) and 1916 (a cold year) (Bigelow, 

 1915, p. 318; 1922, p. 159). 



"This event was widely reported in the daily press. 



■oo For the offshore records for Cyanea see Bigelow, 1914, p. 124; 1915, p. 316; and 1917, p. 303. 



