1912] Ritter: The Marine Biological Station of San Diego 221 
larly within its ambitions, is that of the nannoplankton® or dwarf 
plankton, in familiar terms the floating organisms of ultra- 
minute size. Under this head would come, at least as I am now 
using it, the bacteriology of the sea in the large sense, as well 
as the treatment of any other organisms or stages in the life- 
cycle of organisms that are so minute as to escape ordinary 
methods of capture and observation. 
One of the main questions that arises in this domain is, If 
there be such a thing as a smallest species of organism in the sea, 
what are its characteristics, especially those of size, mode or 
nourishment, and of resistance to the destructive tendencies of 
its environment? This question, or rather series of questions, 
is not only legitimate from the standpoint of observational 
science, but is one the answering of which marine biology is now 
advanced to the position for attacking. And there are several 
easily recognizable points of attack: What may be found in 
sea-water by the extreme concentration of its floating particles 
through subjecting it to the centrifuge? What is there in the 
way of organic beings in the meshes of the finest filtering media 
through which water will pass, after large quantities of it have 
been filtered? What is there in the digestive tracts of animals 
which though themselves minute, live on others vastly more 
minute? What do many small pelagic animals feed upon, the 
digestive organs of which have so far furnished little or no 
evidence of food having been taken? What causes the patches 
of ‘‘slicky’’ or “‘greasy’’ water noticed by everybody familiar 
with the sea? What of the putrefactive bacteria of the carcasses 
of marine animals? Are living organisms of any kind taken 
ashore in the spray that is blown inland, often to considerable 
distances, on nearly all seacoasts almost all the time? If such 
transportations do occur, what is the fate of the organisms trans- 
ported? 
These are all questions not only of great interest in them- 
selves but of still greater interest because of the illimitable vistas 
3 For the introduction of this term (Greek nannos, dwarf) see H. Loh- 
mann (Internat. Revue d. ges. Hydrobiol. u. Hydrographie, 4, 1-38). It 
may be doubted whether an appropriate name has been chosen for it, but 
Lohmann more perhaps than any other single investigator has made it clear 
that a great realm of biology exists here, the exploration of which has so 
far extended along its very margins only. 
