432 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



change was plainly visible from the deck of the Grampus. Though occasional Aster- 

 ionella were taken nearly as far west as Cape Elizabeth (station 10040), which seems 

 to have been its southern and southwestern boundary at the time, we have never 

 found Asterionella in the open gulf since then. But according to Bailey, Asterionella 

 (bis illustration (1915, pi. 2, fig. 18) identifies it as probably A. japonica) is not very 

 uncommon in the St. Andrews' region. He has also reported it from Dead Man's 

 Harbor and from the St. John's River in August, and Fritz (1921) found it occasion- 

 ally — always in small numbers — in October, 1916, and from April until September, 

 1917, at St. Andrews. It was likewise noted in the northern part of Georges Bank 

 on April 16, 1913, in the collections made by Douthart (Bigelow, 1914a, p. 415). 



Herdman, Scott, and Lewis (1914) have described a similar swarming of Asterio- 

 nella japonica near the Isle of Man in May as an event unprecedented for the Irish 

 Channel. But the occasional presence of an abundance of this diatom at that locality 

 is easily explained, for it is known to occur elsewhere in the waters between Ireland 

 and England in February, May, August, and November, not far from the region cov- 

 ered by the plankton studies of the Liverpool Marine Biological Laboratory (Ostenfeld, 

 1913, pi. 57), while it flowers abundantly every spring in the English Channel (maxi- 

 mum in April) and throughout the whole southern part of the North Sea. 



Whether Asterionella japonica is regularly abundant anywhere along the east 

 coast of North America is still to be learned, but its presence in small numbers along 

 the coastal zone between New York and Marthas Vineyard and in Long Island Sound 

 during July and August, 1916 (stations 10360, 10361, and 10396), suggests that it may 

 be more important south and west of Cape Cod than it is in the Gulf of Maine. Fish 

 (1925) reports it at Woods Hole both winter and summer. 



Biddulpliia 



Because of its distinctively neritic habit (it lives planktonic for only a short part 

 of the year) , locality records for Biddulpliia aurita are valuable as indices of movements 

 of water out from the coast. This diatom was found in small numbers among the 

 swarms of Chastoceras and Thalassiosira all around the coastal zone of the gulf 

 during March and April in the years 1913 (Bigelow 1914a, p. 405), 1920 (stations 

 20054, 20059, 20061, 20084, 20090, 20093, 20095, 20097, 20098, 20099, 20100, 20102, 

 20114, 20116, and 20117), and 1921 (stations 10505, 10506, and 10508). It is com- 

 monest close to the shore, as might be expected from its life history, rivalling Thalas- 

 siosira in abundance in a moderately plentiful diatom plankton off the Merrimac 

 River on March 4, 1920 (station 10506), and occurs in some abundance at St. An- 

 drews and elsewhere in the Bay of Fundy (Bailey, 1917, p. 104; McMurrich, 1917; 

 and Fritz, 1921). It was also dominant in the deep off Mount Desert on April 11, 

 1920 (station 2009S), and again off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, on the 13th (station 

 20102), but on both these occasions all other planktonic forms were so scarce that 

 the preponderance of Biddulpliia was due less to abundance on its part than to an 

 absence of other diatoms. The station off Mount Desert, just mentioned, is our 

 only record for B. aurita outside the 100-meter contour; nor have we found it on 

 Georges Bank. These scattered captures show that B. aurita is only a very minor 



