372 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Bolinopsis infundibulum" (M tiller) 



This boreal-Arctic ctenophore is one of the most familiar of pelagic animals 

 along the New England coast, for, as Alexander Agassiz remarked (1865, p. 15), 

 "there is hardly a more common medusa than the Bolina alata on our coast." It is 

 equally abundant off Newfoundland and Labrador, in Arctic seas generally, and south- 

 ward to Norway and Scotland in the eastern Atlantic. 



Unfortunately, Bolinopsis is so fragile that the specimens captured by the 

 tow net are usually reduced to a mass of unrecognizable slime among the other 

 plankton, hence our hauls throw no light on its occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. 

 However, we have observed it often enough from the deck of the vessel (for it is a 

 conspicuous and beautiful object at the surface of the water on the calm days so 

 common in July and August) to show that it is to be expected anywhere in the 

 coastal waters of the gulf. It occurs over the deep basin as well (fig. 95), though 

 there we have observed it but rarely (on Georges Bank not at all). 12 



Our earliest spring record for Bolinopsis is May 6 (station 10270), but L. Agassiz 

 (1849) records its presence in Massachusetts Bay in March and April. It is most 

 abundant during the three months July to September, when, like previous observers, 

 I have seen it in numbers in various bays and harbors from Cape Cod to the Bay 

 of Fundy. It apparently disappears after September, for we have no late autumn 

 or winter records of it anywhere in the gulf. 



Bolinopsis, like Pleurobrachia, reproduces regularly and abundantly in the gulf. 

 A. Agassiz 13 (1874) found it spawning in late summer and early autumn. This being 

 the only season when large specimens are to be found in the gulf, probably but one 

 generation is produced there annually. 



Beroe cucumis Fabricius 14 



Beroe cucumis is as typically oceanic as Aurelia and Cyanea are neritic, and 

 correspondingly it occurs over the basin of the gulf generally as well as in its coastal 

 zone (fig. 102), instead of being chiefly restricted to the latter like the various medusas 

 that pass part of their lives attached to the bottom. Beroe seems first to have been 

 reported in the Gulf of Maine in 1849, when L. Agassiz noted the occurrence of the 

 genus (as "Idya") at Nahant and on the shores of Massachusetts Bay (L. Agassiz, 

 1849, p. 365). In 1852 he saw it in numbers in Provincetown Harbor in August, and 

 he writes (1860, p. 272) that in 1858 "it appeared in such quantities upon our coast 

 during the whole summer that at times it would tinge extensive patches of the 

 surface of the sea with its delicate rosy hue during the warmest part of the day." 



By I860 he had established the presence of Beroe' from Cape Cod to the Bay of 

 Fundy, and more recent students have found it common all along the New England 

 coast in summer. Being practically cosmopolitan in all oceans — Tropic, Temperate, 



» Beautifully pictured by L. Agassiz (1349). 



" For offshore records from 1912 to 1914 see Bigelow, 1914, p. 126; 1915, p. 316; and 1917, p. 303. 



" A. Agassiz (1805 and 1874) describes and figures stages in its development. 



» Probably this is the only species of Beroe which occurs in the gulf; at any rate all Oulf of Maine specimens examined so far, 

 which have been in condition good enough to show critical characters, have proved to belong to it. For general accounts of the 

 genus, of the interrelationships, and general distribution of its several members, and of its development see A. Agassiz (1874), Mayer 

 (1912), and Mortensen (1912). 



