398 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Year-old Pilchards. — Since the last date mentioned in my paper 

 in the previous number, our anchovy-nets have only been shot once, 

 on April 23rd, when only eight pilchards were taken, all except one 

 over 19 cm. (7| inches) in length. But I was informed by W. Roach 

 that a large number of sardine-sized pilchards were taken with a 

 mackerel seine on May 23rd and June 8tli in Whitsand Bay, We 

 received one specimen of the former capture — it was 14*9 cm. long; 

 and six specimens of the latter, which measured 15'4 to 16"6 cm. 



Some of these yearling fish were said to have been sent to the 

 Mevagissey factory to be tinned. Pilchard ova have been very 

 abunudant in the tow-nets worked a few miles outside the Break- 

 water this September. — J. T. C. 



Muggisea atlantica. — Since the publication of my account of this 

 Siphonophore in the previous number .of the Journal I have obtained 

 evidence that it appears annually in abundance in the neighbourhood 

 of Plymouth South. I first noticed it this year in the produce of a 

 somewhat large-meshed tow -net (mosquito netting) worked at a 

 depth of about 20 fathoms, on the east side of the Eddystone, on 

 August 25th ; and soon after it appeared among the plankton collected 

 a few miles outside Plymouth Breakwater. Towards the middle of 

 September it became very abundant, and was secured in perfect 

 condition and in various stages. 



At the present date (September 26th) it still occurs, but its 

 numbers have much decreased. Mr. Rupert Vallentin, of Falmouth, 

 has drawn my attention to the fact that as long ago as 1849 a 

 pelagic animal was described and figured by Charles Wm. Peach in 

 the Twenty-ninth Report of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, which 

 can be recognised as identical with Muggisea atlantica. The title 

 of the paper in which the description occurs is Observations on 

 the Luminosity of the Sea, with descriptions of several of the 

 objects which cause it, some new to the British coasts. The 

 organisms I refer to are described in this paper under the name 

 Diphydiib, in which family is included also a Protozoan of the 

 family Tintinnidse. The description of the Siphonophore is by no 

 means correct, the polypes of the eudoxomes being mistaken for 

 ova ; but the figures, though very rough and inaccurate, leave no 

 doubt in my opinion that Muggisea, was the form which Peach had 

 under observation. A remarkable feature of the paper is the 

 record it gives of the pelagic organisms observed in successive 

 months of the year in the course of four years, 1846 to 1849. In 

 this record we find that in 1849, the " Diphydias '' were observed 

 for the first time on July 1st, and on July 20th occurred in thou- 

 sands : in October they were also noticed. They are not mentioned 



