ANTHOMEDUSAE. 



/. Sarsia princeps Haeckel. 

 Codonium princeps Haeckel 1879, System der Medusen, p. 13, Taf. I, 



Fig, 1-2. 

 Sarsia — ibid., p. 655. 



Codonium Vanhoffen 1897, Drygalski's Gronland-Exped., Bd. II. 



p. 273. 



Gronberg 1898, Zool. Jahrb., Abth. Syst., Bd. XL, 



p. 458. 

 Sarsia Browne 1903, Bergens Museums Aarbog, p. 8. 



Hartlaub 1907, Nordisches Plankton, XII, 1. Teii., 



1 Lief., p. 47, Fig. 44. 



Bigelow 1909, Proceed. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 37, 



p. 303, PL 30, fig. 1. 



Of this species 6 specimens have been brought home 

 by the "Michael Sars", all from stat. 80 on the eastern 

 slope of the Newfoundland Bank: 



Stat. 80. Lat. 47° 34' N, Long 43° 11' W, July 11th 

 1910, depth ca. 2000 m. 



a. Young-fish trawl, 2000 m. wire: 1 specimen, height 

 of the bell 24 mm. The walls of the bell have the 

 same thickness everywhere, ca. 2.5 mm., also at the 

 apical pole, no apical projection being present in 

 this specimen; the apical canal, therefore, is very 

 short, slightly everted at the distal end. 



b. Young-fish trawl, 1000 m. wire: 1 specimen, height 

 of the bell 24 mm. There is a well marked conical 

 apical projection. The length of the apical canal is 

 3 U of the height of the gelatinous projection. 



c. 1 m. ringtrawl at the surface: 4 specimens: 



1. An imperfect specimen. 



2. Height of the bell 14 mm. The length of the 

 apical canal is 2 k of the height of the apical 

 projection. 



3. Height 19 mm., the apical canal very short. 



4. Height 28 mm., the apical canal 2 /s of the height 

 of the apical projection, lobated at the distal end. 



In all the specimens the manubrium is highly con- 

 tracted, the length not exceeding Va — ' 2 /s of the height 

 of the beil cavity. 



New descriptions of this species have been delivered 

 by Gronberg (1898), Browne (1903), Hartlaub (1907), 



and Bigelow (1909).— Hartlaub has given an excellent 

 drawing; as to this drawing I shall only remark, that it 

 does not show the limit between the gonadial and the 

 gastral part of the manubrium. Perhaps the limit is less 

 distinct, when the manubrium is so much expanded as 

 is the case in the specimen figured by Hartlaub. In 

 all specimens I have seen there is a very sharp limit 

 between the gonadial part and the stomach which forms, 

 as a rule, a flask-shaped dilatation in the distal part of 

 the manubrium. Bigelow has given a very good photo- 

 graph of a specimen from the south coast of Newfoundland. 

 The conical apical projection is not always distinct, 

 and it is never sharply marked off from the sides of the 

 umbrella. The length of the apical canal is as a rule 

 2 /-3 — 3 /* of the height of the apical projection. At the 

 distal end of the canal there is a knob-shaped dilatation. 

 In one of the specimens from the "Michael Sars" the 

 distal end of the apical canal is lobated like a hand. 

 Browne (1903) has seen a similar abnormality in a spe- 

 cimen from Spitzbergen: "In this specimen the end of 

 the canal is bifurcated, which is an abnormality". 



Sarsia princeps occurs in almost all arctic seas (se Hart- 

 laub, op. cit. 1907). It is very abundant along the west 

 coast of Greenland, where it is found exclusively in the 

 cold water in the neighbourhood of the coast, not in 

 the inflowing comparatively warm Atlantic water (see 

 Kramp 1913 and 1914). Bigelow mentions one single 

 specimen caught at St. Pierre, a small island off the 

 central part of the south coast of Newfoundland, on 

 October 1st 1908. This specimen as well as the specimens 

 brought home by the "Michael Sars" have undoubtedly 

 been carried by the Labrador Current from the Davis 

 Strait southwards to the waters around Newfoundland. 



In the Davis Strait the grown-up individuals are 

 found near the surface in the summer time. According 

 to Vanhoffen (1897) the young specimens are found 

 in somewhat deeper strata (off the northern parts of the 

 coast of Greenland), but the species has never been re- 

 corded from really deep water. It seems improbable, there- 

 fore, that the two specimens, caught by the "Michael Sars" 

 in the young-fish trawl with 2000 and 1000 m. wire out, 



kramp — 9 



