OBSERVATIONS WANTED 197 



plankton). The methods used in this study are 

 complex, and involve technical training ; it may be 

 added that they have not met with universal approval, 

 and the investigation hardly comes within the scope 

 of an elementary handbook. 



But even round our own coasts there is much to be 

 learnt of the daily and seasonal movements of the 

 larger Plankton, and of its behaviour under changing 

 conditions of its surroundings. Once clear of European 

 coasts, a traveller may feel certain that his collection 

 of Plankton will be serviceable to science if accom- 

 panied by proper observations and full notes. 



What the study of Plankton requires nowadays is 

 not the mere collection of specimens, but the collection 

 of facts. Naturalists have described thousands of 

 planktonic animals from all sorts of places, but know 

 very little about how they came there, why they are 

 there and not elsewhere, how they live, what they eat, 

 and what eats them. Without such knowledge the 

 study of Plankton is about as interesting as to read a 

 street directory containing solely names and numbers. 

 Consequently every item of what is called " natural 

 history " should be observed and noted, and every 

 possible detail recorded whenever a haul is made. The 

 routine details are set out in the sample General 

 Log (p. 416), subject, of course, to modification for 

 special cases. 



Except when an observer is simply collecting 

 Plankton for his own instruction (if even then), no haul 

 should be taken without a definite object ; it should 

 have a story to tell of the Plankton of a particular 

 place, hour, depth, or season, of the effect of rain, 

 breaking sea, ebb and flow of tide, and so forth. For 

 the study of all general questions, the hauls should 

 always be standardized as suggested on pp. 194, 195, 199. 



