No. 11. — Cruise of the Steam Yacht " Wild Duck " in the Bahamas^ 

 January to April, 1893, in charge 0/ Alexander Agassiz. 



III. 



An Account of some Medusce obtained in the Bahamas. By Alfred 



GOLDSBOROUGH MaYER. 



The MedussD described in the following paper were discovered by 

 Mr. Alexander Agassiz during his recent expedition to the Bahamas in 

 Mr. John M. Forbes's yacht " Wild Duck," in the winter of 1892-93. It 

 was my good fortune to have accompanied Mr. Agassiz on this expedition 

 as his assistant. It is by his permission that I publish this paper. 



Although we were cruising upon the Bahama Banks and oft' the Cuban 

 coast from January 10th until March 19th, it was not until after the 

 middle of February that the surface tows became at all remarkable for 

 the number of specimens taken. This was due in great measure to the 

 rough weather caused by the constant trade wind during the winter 

 months, which rendered attempts at deep-sea hauls wellnigh imprac- 

 ticable for a large portion of the time. It has also been conclusively 

 shown very many times by Mr. Agassiz in his use of the Tanner net that 

 the pelagic fauna sinks down into the ocean when waves disturb the 

 surface, never, however, descending to a depth much greater than one 

 hundred fathoms. 



After the middle of February the number of marine animals which 

 came under our daily notice greatly increased, owing to the appearance 

 of many larval forms. An interesting characteristic in the distriliution 

 of the pelagic life was the frequent occurrence of ''windrows" com- 

 posed of vast numbers of individuals of a few species. For example, in 

 the surface tow taken in Banes Harbor, Cuba, February 15, there were 

 uncounted hundreds of Glossocodon tenuirostris (Agassiz), and almost 

 nothing else. Similarl}', in the harbor of Nassau, upon the night of 

 March 12th, one could not drag a tow-net many feet without capturing 

 thousands of the little Discophore, Linerges mercurius (Haeckel). 

 These little jelly-fish were all in the same stage of development ; still 

 lacking the marginal tentacles which characterize the adult, and their 



VOL. XXV. NO. 11. 



