696 . REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



which partly covered the water and partly were busy flyiug to and fro, 

 having to feed besides themselves their greedy young ones sitting in 

 their nests on the barren rocks of Jan Mayen. By means of the surface- 

 net we gained considerable knowledge of this pelagian fauna. In cer- 

 tain places the sea was swarming with the well-known "herring-food" 

 {Calanns JimnarcJiiciis), but most of them three to four times larger than 

 those on our coast. In other places, we found enormous numbers of a 

 winged snail peculiar to the Polar Sea {Limacina heUcina) moving about 

 in the water with great rapidity, by means of its wing-like organs of 

 motion, also specimens of the peculiar transparent " whale-food" (Clione 

 limacina), the principal food of the Greenland whale. It was exceed- 

 ingly interesting to observe that the surface-water for miles and miles, 

 especially where the lower temperature indicated the close proximity of 

 ice, was literally filled with a shapeless organic matter which gave a 

 grayish-green color to the water. If a fine tulle surface-net was dragged 

 after the vessel, it could be noticed, after the lapse of a few seconds, by 

 its resistance, that it had become useless. When taken out of the water 

 it was found to be thickly covered and its inside filled with a yellow- 

 brownish gelatinous slime, emitting a peculiar organic odor. All the 

 fine meshes were so completely stopped up that water only flowed 

 through with difficulty. Seen under the microscope (magnified 800- 

 1,000 times in diameter), this gelatinous matter was found to consist of 

 live protoplasm of the simplest composition imaginable, and aggregated 

 in irregular large and small lumps. 



Among this protoplasm we found, but only sporadically, diatomic 

 shells and other microscopic bodies, among them not a few of the pecu- 

 liar calcareous concretions, coccolites and cocco-spheres, known to us 

 from the Atlantic deep. Already at our first station to the northwest 

 of the Vigten Islands we had observed a similar sea-slime, but not in 

 such large quantity ; and the microscopic examination proved that it 

 consisted exclusively of formed organisms, especially a peculiar diatom 

 {CJuctoceros), each of which has a regular shell terminating in four long 

 horns, all of them being united in long thread-like chains. Many years 

 ago I observed a similar organic slime in the Christiania fiord early in 

 spring or immediately after the ice had broken ; the fishermen called 

 it "Gro," and on closer examination it was found to consist almost ex- 

 clusively of the above-mentioned diatom. I have learned later that this 

 same phenomenon has been several times observed by other naturalists, 

 especially in the Arctic Seas near Spitzbergen and Greenland, where 

 this slime gives a peculiar color to large portions of the ocean. So far, 

 however, no thorough microscopic investigation has been made of this 

 organic matter found in the Arctic Sea. I can, at any rate, not find any 

 record of any one having discovered free protoplasm in this slime such 

 as I certainly found in the slime near Jan Mayen. Wherever I find this 

 sea-slime spoken of, it is said to consist chiefly of diatoms. But what 

 gives such great scientific interest to this phenomenon is the remarkable 



