io8 DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN 



In the upper layers there were the same young fish, many of 

 them with stalk-eyes, and leptocephali, while flying fish, Sar- 

 gasso weed, and the familiar Sargasso animals were all once 

 more in evidence. 



We found a large cluster of eggs, weighing approximately 

 a kilo, drifting about at Station 69, belonging to the common 

 angler-fish [Lopkius piscatoritts), the development of which was 

 studied by Alexander Agassiz ; we hatched out the eggs and 

 obtained the stages depicted by him. Angler-fish only inhabit 

 the coast banks, so that our find of slightly developed eggs, that 

 could not have been drifting many days, indicated that we were 

 now in the neighbourhood of the American coast bank. 



In deep water we found once more at Stations 67 and 69 

 the deep-sea animals of the Sargasso Sea, that is to say, all 

 the black fishes and red crustaceans which we have so often 

 mentioned already. There were not merely the commonest 

 kinds of small fish, but also large ones (such as three examples 

 of Gastrosto7}ms), and fishes which are caught in other oceans 

 (Aceratias, Serrivomer). 



While we were hauling in our appliances at Station 67, a 

 storm got up, which gradually increased to a hurricane, worse 

 than anything hitherto encountered by the " Michael Sars." It 

 lasted for twenty-four hours, during which the ship was smothered 

 in spray. Our engines were kept going full steam ahead, yet 

 the vessel was driven a whole degree (60 nautical miles) astern. 

 vStill her buoyancy stood her in good stead, and she did not ship 

 a single sea. 



At Station 70, on the edge of the coast bank, where the 

 depth was iioo metres, we discovered that we had for the 

 second time left purely oceanic conditions behind, and once 

 more the true boreal plankton appeared in the surface layers. 

 There was the little copepod Cala^ius finmarchicus, the commonest 

 crustacean in the Norwegian Sea, and we also now met with 

 EiUhemisto, NyctipJianes, Krohnia hamata, Limacina helicina,^ 

 and Clione limacina, all species that are regarded as specially 

 characteristic of the Norwegian Sea. Still in the deep water 

 from 350 metres down to iioo metres we continued to get the 

 familiar pelagic deep-sea fish Cyclothoiie signata and C. microdon, 

 as well as the medusa Atolla and other forms ; so that the area 

 of distribution of these animals extends from Africa to North 

 America, that is to say, in all the water from the one continental 

 slope to the other. 



^ Limacina was taken in numbers by Ilaeckel and Murray off Scourie in Scotland. 



