202 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



net is of little service for collecting large organisms, and the same thing 

 was experienced during the cruise of the " Albatross " in the Eastern 

 Tropical Pacific in 1904-1905. The construction of the tail of the net 

 should be such as to prevent its collapse with consequent injury to its 

 contents. For this purpose a glass jar is often attached. But our 

 experience on various expeditions has shown that it is quite as effective, 

 and much more convenient, simply to insert between the bolting silk 

 and outer covering a sleeve of brass wire-netting, sewing it to the outer 

 net, and leaving enough stuff to tie up below it. This has answered 

 every purpose, is cheap, and unbreakable. 



The Tanner closing net was also employed at one station, but caught 

 nothing. For work on a small sailing vessel such as the " Grampus," 

 owing to the rapid rolling and pitching, this form of closing net is much 

 more difficult to handle than on a large vessel. Even in calm weather a 

 schooner lurches about so violently that it is often impossible to handle 

 any heavy apparatus requiring delicate adjustment. For this reason 

 the arrangement of the " trigger " on the Tanner net, which has been 

 found entirely adequate on the " Albatross," was unsatisfactory, owing to 

 its liability to trip, with consequent closing of the net, before the latter 

 even reached the water. To obviate this difficulty, following the ex- 

 ample of Murray ^ who experienced the same trouble, we lashed the long 

 upright arm of the trigger to the wire rope with weak twine. This holds 

 the trigger firmly, but, being readily cut by the messenger in its descent, 

 offers no obstruction to the operation of the net. To the use of the 

 Petersen net excessive rolling introduces another but equally serious 

 drawback, namely, the possibility of the net opening while being lowered, 

 when it is pulled upward through the water by the reverse roll of the 

 vessel. A second drawback to this net is that it can be operated only 

 through a comparatively short column of water, a fact which, together 

 with the small diameter of the mouth, seriously reduces the amount of 

 its catch. 



During the Cruise intermediate hauls were made at nine stations with 

 the five-foot open net at various depths down to about 300 fathoms and 

 thence up to the surface, both by day and by night, and at one station 

 with the Tanner net. The results of this work were most discouraging. 

 Although the net always brought back a considerable mass of material, 

 this consisted almost entirely of species of Salpae, fishes, schizopods, 

 amphipods, copepods, ostracods, pteropods, and Sagittae, which were 

 taken also on the surface or in hauls at depths from 15 to 50 fathoms. 



1 Geogr. Journ., 13, p. 147, 1899. 



