NATURE ADRIFT 



It is hoped that as you, the reader, explore this underwater world through 

 this book some of your desire for knowledge will be satisfied and some of 

 your questions answered. If it makes your appetite the keener and you want 

 to ask questions you had not thought of before, then it will be even better. 

 If you get interested in these creatures, either alive or from your armchair, 

 and would know more of their personalities and their behaviour, exploring 

 as it were the same country by another route, then you should read Professor 

 Sir Alister Hardy's book, No. 34 in the New Naturalist series (Collins), and 

 after that you can delve farther and deeper as your fancy dictates. It is an 

 excellent book, written by another plankton enthusiast; if you enjoy mine 

 you arc sure to enjoy his also. I recommend it to you. 



In the production of this book, I have written partly from my own 

 experiences but necessarily even more from the researches of others. These 

 I have taken from their published works in journals from all over the world 

 and I gratefully acknowledge this here, as to make the book easily readable 

 by the nature lover I have not included detailed references. I must thank 

 H.M. Government through the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 for Scotlanti for permitting me to write it, yet this is a personal book and is in 

 no way an official document and I must clearly state that nothing written in 

 it makes any claim to be the official view of this or any other Government 

 Department. I particularly wish to thank Dr. C. E. Lucas, C.M.G., my 

 colleague with Professor Hardy and now my Director at Aberdeen, for his 

 advice and help that made this book a possibility and my job at the Marine 

 Laboratory, Aberdeen, just about the most interesting one that I could 

 have found. 



To those who have helped me with the illustrations I am deeply grateful, 

 for without them this book would not be worth the writing. They include 

 those who have drawn figures, those who graciously let me use their 

 excellent photographs or permitted me to copy published figures. 



My friend and colleague Mr. J. D. Milne has drawn for me Figures i, 2, 

 3, 4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,20,21, 22,24,25,26, 30, 31, 32 and 37; a number 

 of these are copies — Figures 8 and 32 with the kind permission of Professor 

 Hardy, 24 and 25 with that of Dr. Gunnar Thorson and Dr. C. Barker 

 JcZ)rgensen of Denmark, 13, 14, 15, 30 and 37 with that of Dr. F. S. Russell of 

 Plymouth, and 35 of R. S. Glover of Edinburgh. Many others are adapted 

 from figures published in various books and papers, too many to cite in 

 detail in this 'Nature Study' book, and in acknowledging this I express my 

 debt and thanks. Figures 5 and 6 were drawn for me by R. S. Glover and 

 Figure 38 is by A.J. Lee of the Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft. The coloured 

 frontispiece is by my colleague Mr. T. Lovegrove, and the half-tone 

 drawings offish larvae in Plates XXVIII, XXIX and XXX were also drawn 



