TRANSACTIONS 



OP 



THE LINNEAN SOCIETY. 



BISCAYAN PLANKTON 



COLLECTED DURING A CRUISE OF H.M.S. 'RESEARCH/ 1900. 



Pakt I.— methods and DATA. 



(Plate 1.) 



By G. Herleut Fowler, B.A., Fh.J)., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



Read 21st January, 1904. 



IJURING the montli of July, 1900, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty 

 consented, at the request of the Council of the Royal Society, to j^lace H.M.S. ' Research ' 

 at my disposal for an investigation of the Plankton of the Bay of Biscay. In this work 

 I had the very great advantage of the voluntary assistance of my friend Mr. L. A. 

 Borradaile, of Selvvyn College, Camhridge, without which it would have heen impossible 

 to get through so much in the time at my disposal. My thanks are also due not only 

 to the Lords of the Admiralty and to the Council of the Royal Society, but also to 

 Admiral Sir W. J. Wharton, F.R.S., for his assistance in the matter, and to Captain A. M. 

 Pield and the other officers of the ' Research' for the ready and patient help which they 

 rendered throughout the cruise. 



The area studied was selected as being the nearest to Great Britain at which a depth 

 of over 2000 fathoms could readily be obtained. It lay between 46° 43' and 47° 29' North 

 latitude, and 7° 15' and 8° 18' West longitude. The stations were included in a parallelo- 

 gram which measured roughly 78 by 20 nauticjil miles. Within so small an area, and 

 at a considerable distance from land, there is no reason to sup])Ose that the fauna and 

 physical conditions are other than uniform throughout ; and what is true of one 

 extremity of the parallelogram may fairly be taken to hold good of the other end at the 

 same moment. This identity of conditions was deliberately selected, for, as I have else- 

 where maintained *, accurate information as to the constituents of the Mesoplanktonic 



• Proc. Zool. Soc. 1898, pp. 567 et stq. 

 SECOND SEIZES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. X. 1 



