48 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



this threshold it is generally distributed southwards into the antarctic region. In the Pacific it has 

 probably a much more extensive distribution than is generally known; it is common in the tropical 

 East Pacific, but it has not yet been taken off the west coast of North America, and there are only a 

 few records from the western Pacific (Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Japan, North-East Australia). The 

 previous records from the Indian Ocean were likewise few and scattered, until 'Discovery II' found 

 it in numerous localities in the southern parts of this ocean. 



Haliscera conica Vanhoff^en 1902 



(Text-fig. 17) 



19026 Haliscera conica Vanhoffen, p. 72. PI. 9, fig. 6; Pi. 11, fig. 33. 



1910 HaUcreas conica Mayer, p. 394. Fig. 248. 



I9i2fl Haliscera conica Vanhoffen, p. 381. 



1936 HaUcreas album Thiel, p. 37, in part. 



1947 Haliscera conica Kramp, p. 6. 



Occurrence: Stns 100, 102, 137, 282, 302, 303, 322, 335, 337, 344, 354, 391, 568, 588, 696, 1056. WS 29, WS 30, 



WS 61, WS 160, WS 190. 

 Some poorly preserved specimens from Stns 100, 301 and 322 probably also belong to this species. (For details of 



station positions, date, etc., see Table i, p. no, and text-fig. 17, p. loi.) 



Stns 100 and 102 are near the Cape of Good Hope, St. 282 is in the Gulf of Guinea, Stns 568 and 588 

 are west of Graham Land, Antarctic, and St. 696 is south-west of the Cape Verde Islands. The other 

 localities are in the neighbourhood of South Georgia and between this island and the southern point 

 of South America. 



Besides the real Haliscera conica, Thiel (1936) included under the name of HaUcreas album, Hali- 

 scera racovitzae Maas, which is a distinct species, and the doubtful species, Haliscera alba Vanhoffen. 

 Most of the specimens collected by the ' Meteor ' Expedition and listed by Thiel probably belong to 

 H. conica, but some of them may have been H. racovitzae} 



Some of the specimens in the Discovery collections are in a very good state of preservation, and by 

 comparison it has been possible to identify almost all the other specimens. As mentioned on p. 47, 

 the conical shape of the umbrella is very characteristic and resistant even in badly preserved speci- 

 mens, and as a rule most of the tentacles and radial canals and gonads are retained which, in conjunc- 

 tion with the shape of the umbrella, is sufficient to put the identification beyond any doubt. 



The specimens in the present collection vary in diameter between 3 and 16 mm. In adult speci- 

 mens the height of the umbrella is about two-thirds the diameter ; young specimens are only half as 

 high as wide, and the gelatinous substance is thinner than in the adult. The gonads begin to appear 

 when the diameter is 10-12 mm. In the adult the gonads are oval, situated a little nearer to the stomach 

 than to the ring-canal. In a specimen 15 mm. wide the gonads are 2 mm. long, separated from the 

 stomach by 2 mm., from the ring-canal by 2-5 mm. Female gonads contain 7-9 large eggs. The velum 

 is broad, 3 mm. in a specimen 15 mm. wide. The marginal organs agree perfectly with Vanhoffen's 

 Fig. 33. It is characteristic of this species, in contradistinction to racovitzae and bigelowi, that the 

 thickening of the marginal nematocyst tissue at the base of each tentacle is very broad, forming a 

 broad basal bulb. Vanhoffen's Fig. 33 shows 9 tentacles in the octant, in Fig. 6 there are 11, which 

 may be an artistic exaggeration. In the present collection I have counted the tentacles as follows: 



1 Homoeonema alba from the tropical East Pacific (Bigelow 1909, p. 142) probably belongs to the species which later on was 

 described by me (Kramp 1947, p. 8) as a new species, Haliscera bigelowi; it occurs in the North Atlantic. 



