SUEFACF-FAUNA OF THE AECTIC SEAS. 



123 



the whalers and all the other Polynias * between it and the peren- 

 nial polar ice, and inhabited by Pteropods, Appendicularia, Ch«- 

 tognatha, and free Hydrozoa. 



And, finally, a subglacial region tending, so far as surface-life 

 is concerned, to be azoic. 



Observations in the two former regions were of course limited 

 to the voyages northward and southward ; and, moreover, the 

 towing-net was rarely available, for the ship when not surrounded 

 by ice was under steam and making the most of her opportunity. 

 But in the subglacial region observations, though limited to the 

 neighbourhood of winter-quarters, were spread over a year, 

 and were regularly made every fortnight except when sledging- 

 work interfered. "Water for examination was obtained through 

 the " fire-hole," from beside the tide-float, from holes made to 

 ascertain the thickness of the ice, and later in the season from 

 cracks and fissures in the floes. It was taken from various 

 depths, up to 47 fathoms, by means of " Buchanan's bottle ; " 

 and after being inspected with a strong light, was filtered in a 

 siphon-tube through a plug of cotton small enough to be sub- 

 sequently searched with a half-inch objective. A small tow -net 

 with a weight attached near it was worked under the floes by 

 raising and lowering it ; but nevertheless, excepting occasional 

 Copepoda, the only animal organism captured in winter-quarters 

 was a phosphorescent Pleurobranch only 3 millimetres in dia- 

 meter, caught on 30th November, 1875, in water of temperature 

 28°-2 Fahr. 



"While assisting Lieutenant Egerton in making temperature- 

 soundings in Eobeson Channel on 28th May, 1876, I observed 

 two small Seroes sweep past, with the tide ebbing north, under 

 the ice ; but the water probably came from the south, as its 

 temperature was 29° F. While running the gauntlet through 

 Robeson Channel on our return, several Nanomice were seen, 

 like coral necklets, in the water, and one was captured and 

 sketched for future identification. In Discovery Habour me- 

 dusiform gonophores of an undetermined Hydroid were ob- 

 tained : they had six radial canals and numerous simple mar- 

 ginal tentacles. There, too, attached to uprooted Laminarians 



* A term derived from the Eussian, meaning a pool or lane of water in the 

 ice, such as occurs in the breaking up of the ice in the Neva. Arctic voyagers 

 apply it not only to the supposed " Open Polar Sea," but to express wide, open 

 stretches of water in the frozen sea. — [En.] 



9* 



