194 PRELIMINARY INQUIRIES AT PLYMOUTH INTO 



Preliminary Inquiries at Plymouth into the 

 Marine Fauna and the Ova of Fishes. 



By J. T. Cunningliam, B.A., 



Fellow of University College, Oxford j Naturalist of the M. B. A. 



Although the Plymoutli Laboratory was opened only on 

 June 30tli, investigations have been carried on by the Asso- 

 ciation for the last two years. These inquiries have neces- 

 sarily been of a general and preliminary character, but they 

 have resulted in the acquisition of definite precise informa- 

 tion on several subjects, in which previously only conjecture 

 or complete ignorance prevailed. This information includes 

 discoveries of some value and completeness in themselves, 

 but its chief importance lies in the fact that it shows in 

 what directions and by what means the instruments of 

 inquiry supplied by the Plymouth Laboratory, and its 

 organisation, can be applied without delay to fruitful work. 

 It was with just tbis object in view that the Council insti- 

 tuted these preliminary inquiries ; without them, when the 

 apparatus of the Laboratory was ready for action, the staff 

 would have had to make tentative experiments before they 

 knew what pi'oblems the neighbourhood of Plymouth gave 

 the material for solving. With them the fisheries and the 

 marine Fauna of Plymouth are mapped out, and problems to 

 be worked out are definitely proposed, so that the tanks and 

 the powers of the zoologists can be fully occupied without 

 loss of time. 



I will shortly describe the inquiries carried on since the 

 beginning of August, 1887, into the local marine Fauna, and 

 the natural history of food-fishes. 



In the autumn of last year the Sound inside the Break- 

 water, and the neighbourhood of the coast on either side 

 east and west, were explored generally by the dredge and 

 small trawl. In this way it was ascertained that some 



