354 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vl. 



(^Anarrliicas lupus) the other a small gurnard, a species of Ago- 

 71US, probably A. hexagonus Sshneid. 



The similarity of the deep-sea fauna of the St. Lawrence to 

 that of the quaternary deposits of Norway, as described by the 

 late Dr. Sars, is somewhat noticeable. PennatuUe, Oj^hiura 

 Sarsii, Ctenodlscus crispatus, several Mollusca, &c., are common 

 to both ; but on the other hand, the absence of so many charac 

 teristic European invertebrates on the American side of the 

 Atlantic should be taken into consideration. The resemblance 

 between the recent fauna of the deeper parts of the St. Lawrence, 

 and that of the Post-pliocene deposits of Canada, does not seem 

 very close, but our knowledge of each is so limited that any gene- 

 ralisations would be premature. — J. F.Whiteaves in "Nature." 



Fish-Nest in the Sea-Weed of the Sargasso Sea. — • 

 Extracts from a letter from Professor Agassiz to Prof. Peirce, 

 Superintendent U. S. Coast Survey, dated Hassler Expedition, 

 St. Thomas, Dec. 15, 1871.— ^ ^ * The most interesting 

 discovery of the voyage thus far is the finding of a nest built by 

 a fish, floating on the broad ocean with its live freight. On the 

 13th of the month, Mr. Mansfield, one of the ofiicers of the 

 Hassler, brought me a ball of Gulf weed which he had just picked 

 up, and which excited my curiosity to the utmost. It was a 

 round mass of sargassum about the size of two fists,' rolled up 

 together. The whole consisted, to all appearance, of nothing 

 but Gulf weed, the branches and leaves of which were, however, 

 evidently knit together, and not merely balled into a roundish 

 mass ; for, though some of the leaves and branches huns: loose 

 from the rest, it became at once visible that the bulk of the ball 

 was held together by threads trending in every direction, among 

 the sea-weed, as if a couple of handfuls of branches of sargassum 

 had been rolled up together with elastic threads trending in 

 every direction. Put back into a large bowl of water, it became 

 apparent that this mass of sea-weed was a nest, the central part 

 of which was more closely bound up together in the form of a 

 ball, with several loose branches extending in various directions, 

 by which the whole was kept floating. 



A more careful examination very soon revealed the fact that 

 the elastic threads which held the Gulf weed together were 

 beaded at intervals, sometimes two or three beads beiog close to- 

 gether, or a bunch of them hanging . from the same cluster of 



