BIGELOW: EXPLORATIONS IN THE GULF OF MAINE. 99 
zontal for half an hour at some intermediate depth. When stations 
were occupied after dark, we usually used the four-foot net within a 
fathom or so of the surface, in this way getting very rich tows. The 
data of the hauls is listed in the table of stations (p. 135). The 
hauls with the quantitative (Hensen) net are discussed separately 
(p. 127). 
By far the most important member of the animal plankton over 
most of the Gulf, numerically at least, was the small copepod Calanus 
finmarchicus, which was taken at every Station (p. 115). This species 
plays much the same réle in the vital economy of the Gulf as it does 
in Norwegian waters on the other side of the Atlantic, being the chief 
food for pelagic fishes, particularly the mackerel. It is well known to 
fishermen under the name of “red feed,” from the reddish color of a 
mass of these little crustaceans. At times it occurs in almost un- 
believeable numbers; for example our four-foot net hauls in Massa- 
chusetts Bay near Cape Ann in July often yielded two or three quarts 
of this Calanus. At this time the plankton of the Bay was almost 
exclusively composed of C. finmarchicus, with very few other copepods; 
e. g. Pseudocalanus, Eurytemora, and Metridia; an insignificant num- 
ber of Sagittae (chiefly S. elegans); a few larval schizopods; an occa- 
sional full-grown schizopod (Meganyctiphanes norvegica), and a few 
medusae, e. g., Aurelia, Cyanea, Melicertum, and the northern 
ctenophore, Bolinopsis infundibulum. We also obtained one specimen 
of the large pteropod Clione limacina in the Bay, and others off Cape 
Ann (p.119). Inthe northeastern corner of the Bay, this general type 
of plankton was varied by the presence of great numbers of fish eggs 
(Station 1), and our several stations in the northeast corner of the Bay 
yielded many pelagic larvae of the cunner (Tautogolabrus), cod 
(Gadus collarius), witch flounder (Glyptocephalus cynoglossus), and 
sanddab (Hippoglossoides platessoides), with a few silver hake 
(Merluccius), redfish (Sébastes marinus), haddock (Melanogrammus 
aeglifinus), rockling (Enchelyopus) and other species (p. 107). 
Twelve miles or so off Cape Ann (Station 2) there were very few 
fish eggs; and no fry; and over the western arm of the deep basin 
(Station 7) there were no eggs at all, but a considerable number of fish 
larvae, mostly cod, of which twenty-nine specimens were taken. 
The Calanus swarm, however, was nearly as dense as in the Bay; and 
we noted here, for the first time, the large boreal copepod Fuchaeta 
norvegica, between seventy-five fathoms and the surface. There were 
no other copepod species in the haul. At this station we likewise cap- 
tured two large Meganyctiphanes norvegica, and one specimen of the 
