282 AGALMA ELEGANS. 



Station 4637 300 fathoms to surface 2 specimens, 10 mm. long, fairly 



well preserved. 

 " 4646 surface 3 specimens, two of 10 mm., with 



most of the nectophores gone, 

 and one of 20 mm. (Plate 19, 



fig. 1). 

 " 4714 " 1 specimen of 15 mm., with only 



one complete cormidium, 3 

 bracts and 4 nectophores. 



I have likewise been able to study an excellent specimen from Naples, 150 

 mm. long. 



Romer (:02) has retained both the Agalmopsis elegans of Sars, and the 

 Agalma elegans of Fewkes as separate species. But in saying that the former 

 is known from the original record onh', he has overlooked the fact that it is 

 identical with a well-known Mediterranean form. Geographic distribution 

 points to the identity of the forms described by Sars and Fewkes, instead of 

 suggesting that they are distinct, because the former penetrates yearly the 

 Norwegian Sea from the South (Damas, :09, p. 107), a phenomenon long known 

 for the northerly records of Agalma on the American coast. 



Our largest example is at about the same stage as the young specimen figured 

 by Fewkes, and much resembles it (compare Plate 19, fig. 1, with Fewkes, '81, 

 p!. 9, fig. 1). But, although the colony as a whole is so small, its tentilla, bracts, 

 and nectophores already show the adult characters so plainly that they make 

 the identification positive. This species has been so well described and beauti- 

 fully figured by Sars ('46), Kolliker ('53), Leuckart ('53, '54), and especially 

 Fewkes ('81), that I need merely summarize its diagnostic features. 



General "habitus." In young stages the stem is short and but slightly 

 contractile. In the adult it is long and contractile, and the siphosome so much 

 more slender than in A. okeni that the two species are separable at first glance. 

 In the adult the siphosome is much longer than the nectosome. 



The nectophores are flattened as in A. okeni, but their margins are rounded 

 instead of being distinctly facetted, and the nectosac is deeper, more nearly 

 triangular with broader mouth. The difference might seem trivial, were it not 

 so constant. The bracts (Plate 18, fig. 12) are triangular, foliaceous, thickest 

 near the centre and very thin at the distal margin, instead of truncate and 

 facetted distally as they are in A. okeni. So pronounced is the difference in 

 form between the bracts of the two species that isolated ones may be identified 



