250 REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. 



General Work at the Plymouth Laboratory. 



Work on the cultivation of plankton organisms and on the rearing 

 of marine larvce, which has been in progress for some years, has been 

 continued and advanced. Several interesting forms of diatoms and 

 algce not previously obtained in persistent cultures have been isolated. 

 Mr. W. De Morgan, who has worked in co-operation with Dr. C. 

 Shearer, has reared a large number of hybrid larv?e obtained 

 by intercrossing three species of Uchinus in as many different ways 

 as possible. It is hoped that these experiments will throw light 

 upon some theoretical questions of considerable importance. 



Mr. G. H. Drew, wlio was last year appointed a Beit Memorial 

 Fellow, has carried out a number of successful experiments on the 

 transplantation of tissues in invertebrate animals, which have an 

 important bearing upon the cancer problem. He has also made a 

 special study of certain diseases which occur in fishes. 



Mr. Orton has been making a general study of the distribution of 

 the invertebrate fauna of Plymouth, and has paid particular attention 

 to the Echinodermata and Crustacea. 



Fishery Investigations. 



Owing to the transference of the Xorth Sea Investigations and the 

 staff connected therewith to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 

 and to the sale of the steamer Huxley which thus became necessary, it 

 has not been possible during the past year to devote nearly so much 

 attention as formerly to purely economic fishery problems. In future 

 it is proposed to confine the economic work of the Association to 

 special scientific problems of a fundamental character, which bear 

 directly upon fishery investigations. At the same time it must be 

 pointed out that the Plymouth Laboratory will still afford precisely 

 such training as is required by men who may afterwards be employed 

 in scientific investigation in the service of the Government, and that 

 the general scientific work of the Association, though it may have no 

 immediate economic value, is of such a character as to form an impor- 

 tant part of the necessary foundation upon which the applied science 

 of fisheries must in future be built. 



Mr. Bridgman has commenced an investigation of the age and 

 growth-rate of Plaice in the western part of the English Channel, in 

 continuation of similar researches which were carried on by Dr. Wallace 

 in connection with the North Sea Investigations. A considerable 

 amount of material has already been collected, and this will, it is 

 hoped, be largely added to as the year advances. Mr. Hefford's report 



