314 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to. We bought some for supper (good fish for a halfpenny 

 each), and on dissection found that the stomachs of all of 

 them were crammed full of fresh-looking Calanus (the 

 individual Copepods being for the most part distinct and 

 perfect), along with a few immature Nyctiphanes and 

 larval Decapods. Professor Newstead and my daughter 

 then noticed, while fishing over the side of the yacht, 

 about 8 p.m., that the gulls in the bay were feeding in 

 groups around patches of agitated water evidently caused 

 by shoals of fish. On rowing out to these we saw distinctly 

 the mackerel, large and small, darting about in great num- 

 bers in the clear water, and we also noticed every here 

 and there on the smooth surface of the water — it was a 

 beautifully calm evening — innumerable small whirls or 

 circular marks which, on looking closely, I found to be 

 caused by large Copepoda close to the surface. 



" About twenty years ago I sent a note to ' Nature,' 

 from the yacht 'Argo,' in regard to large Copepoda (I 

 think it was Anomalocera on that occasion, and the locality 

 was further North, off Skye), splashing on the surface so 

 as to give the appearance of fine rain; and this present 

 occurrence at once reminded me of the former occasion, 

 but here the Copepod was Calanus finmarchicus of large size 

 and in extraordinary abundance. They could be clearly 

 seen with the eye on leaning over the side of the boat, a 

 small glass collecting jar dipped at random into the water 

 brought out twenty to thirty specimens at each dip, and a 

 coarse grit-gauze tow-net of about 30 cm. in diameter 

 caught about 20 cubic centimetres of the Copepoda in five 

 minutes. The mackerel were obviously darting about, 

 occasionally leaping to the surface (which gave the gulls 

 their opportunity) where the whirls, caused by the 

 Copepoda, were thickest, and an examination of the 

 stomach-contents of the fish on the vacht afterwards showed 



