INTRODUCTION 



Each volume of the General Embryological Information Service is issued in two parts: 

 Part 1 contains the data on research workers in Europe. The Subject Index of this part 

 refers to the research subjects of European investigators only. 



Part 2 will contain the data on investigators in all countries outside Europe, and will be 

 organised in the same manner as part 1 . 



In the research subjects the wording used by the investigators was generally retained, 

 but some changes have been made in order to save space. Repetitions of words and parts 

 of entries giving too much detail were omitted; phrases such as: "research on . . ." or 

 "studies of . . ." were cancelled; often methods were put in brackets at the end of the 

 entry. Inevitably these condensations have caused a certain loss of information, but we 

 feel that clarity is not seriously impaired. 



For the names of higher taxa of experimental animals the following books have been 

 consulted: L. A. Borradaile and F. A. Potts, The Invertebrata (4th ed., 1963), and J. Z. 

 Young, The Life of Vertebrates (2nd ed., 1962). Lord Rothschild, A Classification of 

 Living Animals (2nd ed., 1965) was also of much use. 



Generally the highest taxon given at the end of the entry is the class, but in Angiosper- 

 mae it is the family, in Mammalia, Reptilia, Amphibia, and Insecta the order, while in 

 Crustacea and Arachnida both the class and the order are listed. 



Some changes have been made in the Subject Index. In previous issues all the work on 

 plants and on unicellular organisms was brought together under one Heading each, whereas 

 the other Headings served multicellular animals only. Starting with this issue plants and 

 (other) unicells are treated in the same way as Metazoa; see the list of New Headings on 

 page 137. 



The number of Subject Headings has been augmented by using some of the former 

 cross references (see) as Headings in this issue. 



Since the G.E.I.S. covers a much wider field of developmental biology than embryo- 

 logy alone, the title of the periodical might be considered inadequate or even confusing. 

 We felt, however, that a well-known title should rather not be changed, and therefore 

 added an explanatory subtitle: An international directory of current research in develop- 

 mental biology . 



For many years the number of research workers listed in the Directory of Names rose 

 at a rate of about 10 percent every two years. From volume 15 (1973/74) onwards the 

 increase has been no more than 3 percent. We think this decrease reflects a stagnation in 

 the growth of research facilities in many parts of the world. Also the number of books on 

 developmental biology published in one year is no longer increasing. 



We feel this is the place to say a few words about the Enquiry on the utility of: Cen- 

 tral Embryological Library (CEL) and General Embryological Information Service (GEIS), 

 which was held in October 1976 and proved to be a success thanks to the co-operation of 

 many developmental biologists. Forms were sent to the 3,200 persons listed in volume 16 

 of the GEIS, of whom about 35 percent responded by returning completed forms, often 

 supplemented by valuable remarks. 



