SUMMARY OF BIOLOGICAL WORK CARRIED OUT 

 ON BOARD THE TERRA NOFA, 1910-1913 



BY D. G. LILLIE 



CAPTAIN SCOTT, with his characteristic thoroughness, made it 

 possible for scientific work to be carried out by the ship's party 

 not only on their three summer visits to the Antarctic, but also 

 during the two winters spent in New Zealand and on the out- 

 ward and homeward voyages. As the early publication of this 

 book makes it impossible to give any adequate account of the 

 various biological results which may have been achieved, it is 

 proposed to give here a brief summary of the collections brought 

 home, together with a few notes concerning them, in order to 

 help the general reader to form some idea of what he will find 

 in the Biological Reports of this Expedition when they appear. 



THE OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD VOYAGES 



Whenever opportunities occurred on the outward and home- 

 ward voyages between England and New Zealand tow-nets of 

 fine mesh and of various sizes were put overboard to catch the 

 small animals and plants which drift about in the sea and form 

 the staple food of the whalebone whales and of many birds and 

 fishes. 



These floating organisms, which include representatives of 

 all the larger divisions of the animal kingdom, are spoken of col- 

 lectively as the plankton. On some occasions the net was towed 

 behind the ship for about half an hour to catch the floating popu- 

 lation of the surface waters. Sometimes the ship was kept sta- 

 tionary and the net sent down by a sinker to 500 fathoms or less 

 and hauled up again; by this means samples of those forms 

 which live below the surface were obtained. 



About 70 samples of the plankton were collected. They vary 

 greatly in size, one catch hardly covers the bottom of a half- 



