210 



Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys on the 



[June 15, 



Station No. 6. Led. 64° 5' N., Long. 56° 47' W.; AlO fathoms. 

 Only a very small quantity came up in tlie dredge ; but every scrap was 

 a treasure, and showed that we as yet knew nothing whatever of the rich 

 fauna which lies hid in the depths of the sea in the Arctic regions. Two 

 actinozoans of the highest interest occurred here. Of these the first is a 

 remarkably fine Grorgonian belonging to the genus Mopsea. It differs 

 entirel}^ from the recently described Mopsea horealis, M. Sars*, the only 

 previously known northern form, and approaches much more nearly to the 

 character of species from tropical seas. It grows in the form of a thick 

 little bush, 6 inches high (probably, at least, 9 inches when perfect). 

 The main stem continuously divides with verticils of three or four 

 branches each, and the branches thus formed similarly subdivide. The 

 polyps, instead of being short as is the case in Mopsea horealis, are very 

 long, longer even than in Mopsea MecUterranea, Hissof. The form may 

 be named Mopsea arhuscula. In floating the sharp sand of this dredging 

 to separate the Foraminifera and Ostracoda, a tip of a branch of Anti- 

 pathes arctica, Liitken, was procured. Although this fragment was not 

 more than a quarter of an inch long, there can be no doubt of its belong- 

 ing to the species described by Dr. Liitken J ; and we thus obtain a 

 habitat for this Arctic form of what is otherwise known only as a marked 

 tropical genus, if we except an as yet undescribed species found in the 

 'Porcupine' Expedition of 1869. The type and only known specimen 

 of Antipathes arctica, described by Dr. Liitken, was found in the stomach 

 of a shark (Scymnus microcephalus), in Eodebay, about two miles north 

 of Jakobshavn in Greenland, by M. K. Fleischer. The Spatangoid 

 Scliizaster frag His (Diib. and Kor.) was also dredged here, and is an addi- 

 tion to the Grreenland fauna, to which it is remarkable that no Spatan- 

 goid and only one Echinoid, Toxopneustes Drohachiensis (Miill.), was pre- 

 viously known to belong. The few Eoraminifera did not include any 

 species worth special notice ; but among the Ostracoda were Cythericlea 

 Sorhyana, Jones, and Cythere ahyssicola, Gr. 0. Sars. 



Station Ao. 7. 

 Nothing received from this station. 



Station No. 8. Lat. 62° 6' A., Long. 55° 56' W. ; IZbO fathoms. 



The very small quantity of sand from the sounding of this station 

 contained, among many more common Eoraminifera, a JST odosarian which 

 incorporates sand and extraneous matter in its shell- substance, and appears 



* On some remarkable Forms of Animal Life from the Great Deeps of the Nor- 

 wegian Coasts (Ohristiania, 1872), pp. 50-57, pL v. figs. 1-23. 



t Hist. Nat. des principales productions de I'Europe Meridionale, vol. v. p. 332, 

 pi. viii. figs. 43, 44. 



\ Oversigt over det Kongl. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Forhandl, 1871 (translated 

 Ann. & Mag. Jsat. Hist. 1872, ser. 4, vol. x, p. 77). 



