98 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology, 



east, as found by the Albatross in 1883 and 1885, together with the 

 saUnities, as pointed out above (p. 97) is good evidence that there is a 

 flow of St. Lawrence water along the coast of Nova Scotia toward 

 the southwest. And, finally, at least two wreck courses (Hautreux, 

 1910) have been recorded with a southerly drift near Nova Scotia. 

 But there are no wreck tracks nor iceberg tracks leading from the 

 grand banks of Newfoundland toward Nova Scotia, such as might be 

 expected were there any pronounced westerly drift of the Labrador 

 current. The occasional occurrence of Arctic pelagic organisms in 

 Massachusetts Bay and the Bay of Fundy, such as the medusa 

 Ptychogena and the ctenophore Mertensia, neither of which has been 

 able to establish itself in the Gulf, shows that there are occasional 

 indraughts of the St. Lawrence water into the latter. But the fact 

 that last summer the indrift was of Atlantic not St. Lawrence origin 

 (p. 94), and the occasional record of tropical organisms, e. g., the 

 siphonophore Physalia at Grand Manan, show that its influence is 

 either sporadic, or seasonal, not constant. 



If any general conclusion can be drawn from the scanty oceano- 

 graphic data yet available, it is that the Gulf of Maine owes its low 

 temperature and salinity largely to local causes; i. e., to its geographic 

 position and partial isolation by the sill formed by George's Bank; 

 and that though there was an influx of ocean water in the summer of 

 1912 from the edge of the Gulf Stream, in other years, or at other 

 seasons, there are more or less sporadic indraughts of cold water flow- 

 ing from the northeast. This water, however, probably has no con- 

 nection with the Labrador Current, but comes from the St. Lawrence. 



Preliminary notes on the plankton. 



The following notes on the macroplankton, preliminary to the spe- 

 cial reports on the various groups, are offered because no attempt 

 seems to have been made to study the pelagic fauna of the Gulf as a 

 whole; and because the collections and oceanographic data of the 

 Grampus allow a correlation between its plankton at a given time 

 and the physical factors of the water, at the same time and place. 

 With these ends in view, our main efforts were directed toward quali- 

 tative, rather than quantitative results, though we devoted as much 

 attention to the latter as was practicable. The usual program of 

 plankton work during the day time, was to use the no. 20 (bolting silk) 

 net at or near the surface, and to tow the coarse four-foot net hori- 



