360 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
We have never taken Cyanea smaller than 2 inches in diameter out in the open 
gulf, except as I have just noted; but by the time they have passed that size and 
have scattered farther from their birth places in shoal water, we have either cap- 
tured them or seen them floating on the surface on many occasions and at many 
localities in the gulf. Not only is Cyanea a familiar object to fishermen, for it often 
swarms in the more open bays from Cape Sable to Cape Cod, though never in our 
experience in the river mouths and other estuarine and slightly brackish situations 
where Aurelia so abounds (p. 362), but it is dreaded by swimmers with good cause 
because of its venomous tentacles. On July 29, 1921, for example, hundreds of per- 
sons suffered more or less irritation of the skin from touching red jellyfish while 
bathing at Nantasket Beach near the mouth of Boston Harbor," and the tentacles 
retain their irritating power for some time after the medusae strand on the beach. 
Most of our locality records for Cyanea (fig. 100) have been from within or 
at most only a few miles without the 100-meter contour, which corresponds to 
its neritic nature. It is universal all around the coastal belt of the gulf, the ab- 
sence of definite records along western Nova Scotia mirroring the fact that we have 
made no summer hauls there and not a scarcity of Cyanea. No doubt its range 
also covers the whole of Georges Bank, though the western part of the latter seems 
more prolific in Cyanea than the eastern. The Grampus found rather small speci- 
mens (2 to 4 inches in diameter) so plentiful on July 23, 1916 (station 10348), that 
one half hour’s haul with the 1-meter net at 30 meters depth yielded 3 gallons of 
them. It is probable that Cyanea also occurs on Browns Bank, though we did not 
chance to find it there on our June and July visits. 100 
Cyanea shows little tendency to drift out into deep water in the northern and 
northeastern parts of the gulf east of Cape Elizabeth, but we have taken (or seen) it 
at several stations well out in the basin off Massachusetts Bay and thence south- 
ward toward Georges Bank, its distribution agreeing in this with that of other neritic 
animals as well as with the general distribution of salinity. The presence of a consider- 
able number of rather small (2 to 3 inches) Cyanea floating over the deep basin in longi- 
tude 67° 30' W., some 15 miles north of Georges Shoals on June 25, 1915, is likewise 
worth noting, though it is not clear whether they came from the neighboring bank 
or from Cashes Ledge to the north, which is likewise shallow enough to serve as a 
nursery for this jellyfish. There is nothing in our records to suggest that Cyanea 
disperses any more widely over the central portion of the gulf in autumn than in 
summer, and although it is so widespread in the peripheral zone of the gulf and so 
plentiful at times near shore, we have never found it in any abundance more than 
a few miles outside the outer headlands except on the offshore banks as just noted. 
Cyanea hugs the coast of the Gulf of Maine much more closely than it does the 
Norwegian coast, where it may drift as much as 250 miles out to sea with the current 
by September (Damas, 1909). We found Cyanea similarly restricted to the coastal 
zone within the 100-meter contour from New York southward to Chesapeake Bay 
during our summer cruises of 1913 (a warm year) and 1916 (a cold year) (Bigelow, 
1915, p. 318; 1922, p. 159). 
This event was widely reported in the daily press. 
100 For the offshore records for Cyanea see Bigelow, 1914, p. 124; 1915, p. 316; and 1917, p. 303. 
