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louvual of tlje ^Tariite §tomcal ^$5odatioit. 



The Director's Report.— No. 1. 



The present number of the ' Journal of the Marine Biological 

 Association ' forms the first of a new series in which is intended to 

 publish such scientific memoirs as have a direct or indirect bearing 

 upon economic questions. In order that the illustrations, which are 

 indispensable in zoological meraoirSj may be conveniently large, the 

 size of the journal has been increased to royal octavo. It is not 

 intended that the Journal should enter into competition with any 

 of the existing zoological or botanical periodicals. It is recog- 

 nised that the Association is dependent on public support, and 

 that, whilst it is its duty to supply scientific information in an easily 

 comprehensible form to those who are interested in marine fisheries, 

 it should confine itself to shorter accounts of work dealingr with 

 those questions in animal or vegetable morphology which are 

 necessarily couched in very technical language. The Journal will 

 be issued from time to time, according to the amount of work ready 

 for publication, and will contain, besides the memoirs alluded to, 

 abstracts of the scientific work done by the naturalists hiring tables 

 in the Laboratory, notes and correspondence from other fishery and 

 marine stations, abstracts of the most important results obtained 

 by the fisheries commissioners of various Governments^ and any 

 correspondence addressed to the editor for publication. 



In issuing the present number a brief sketch of the condition of 

 the Association may conveniently be given. 



Prior to the completion of the Laboratory at Plymouth it was 

 impossible for the naturalists of the Association to do any great 

 amount of practical scientific work ; the means and appliances were 

 wanting. A great deal of information on fishery matters and on 

 the local Fauna and Flora was, however, collected and tabulated, 

 and has been printed in the first two numbers of this journal. 

 Mr. Cunningham, the naturalist of the Association, began to work 

 on the development of bony fishes in August, 1887, and the memoir 



VOL. II, ^•o. I, 1 



