Putnam.] 130 [Nov. 5, 



season of 1857. By the kindness of Prof. Agassiz, I have also had 

 the opportunity of making a careful study of a large number of 

 other specimens collected by Mr. Mills at the same time with those 

 mentioned above ; also three specimens received from Liverpool by 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which were collected on the 

 English coast. But the most important material, for which I am also 

 indebted to Prof. Agassiz, is the large collection of over two hundred 

 specimens of young and old, collected by the Hassler Expedition in 

 the Straits of Magellan, during the month of March, 1872. I have 

 thus been able to compare undoubted specimens of the Myxine gluti- 

 nosa from the northern. European waters, with specimens from our 

 own northeastern coast, and with specimens from the southern part 

 of South America ; the latter being unquestionably identical with 

 those described by Jenyns under the name of M. australis. 



The specimen dredged by Messrs. Packard and Cooke came up 

 from a soft, muddy bottom. Those collected by Mr. Mills were obtained 

 principally while feeding on the offal thrown overboard by the fisher- 

 men at Grand Menan, while those collected by the Hassler Expedi- 

 tion, in the Straits of Magellan, were obtained by placing the bodies 

 of dead birds, etc., in pot nets, and allowing the nets to remain for a 

 time, when the slime-eels would be found in great numbers buried in, 

 and feeding upon, the flesh. 



On September 18, 1873, Messrs. Packard and Cooke, while on the 

 "Bache," and acting under the direction of Prof. Baird, U. S. 

 Commissioner of Fisheries, dredged a specimen of Myxine in one 

 hundred and eighteen fathoms on a blue-mud bottom, just east of 

 Jeffrey's Ledge (directly east from Portsmouth). Dr. Packard's 

 notes give the temperature of the bottom as 35°, and of the surface, 

 57°. 



This specimen was brought to Salem alive, but died before I had 

 the opportunity of examining it. When examined, very soon after 

 death, it was of a light blue color above, whitish below, with a red- 

 dish tint over the whole body, evidently caused by the blood showing 

 through the thin skin. The mucous sacs were very conspicuous as 

 two abdominal rows of white spots. The membranous fins were 

 transparent, and well defined from the skin. 



The specimen is twelve inches long, and not quite half an inch in 

 depth at the branchial apertures. The head (under this term I des- 

 ignate the portion forward of the branchial apertures) is one quarter 



two 



