SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 351 



zoo-plankton, and the Diatoms present were chiefly neritic 

 forms. But these former hauls in 1909 and 1910 were 

 fully a month earlier, about July 21st ; so it is possible 

 that on the present occasion the neritic Diatoms 

 had disappeared and been replaced by Copepoda and a 

 few other animals. In 1911, however, the hauls in the 

 Firth of Lorn on July 24th to 26th were zoo-planktonic 

 in character. 



Dunstaffnage Bay is close to the entrance of Loch 

 Etive, where, in 1896, the late Mr. George Murray found 

 the neritic diatom Skeletonema costatum in great 

 abundance in August — in marked contrast to the mainly 

 oceanic zoo-plankton that prevailed in that neighbour- 

 hood this year. We cannot, however, say that the 

 plankton in Dunstaffnage Bay is necessarily any guide to 

 what was present at the same time in Loch Etive, so much 

 may these fjord-like inlets on the West Coast of Scotland 

 differ from one another in their characteristic organisms. 



We have two surface hauls taken further south in 

 the Firth of Lorn, or the open water outside ; — on 

 August 26th off the Isles of the Sea, and on August 27th 

 off the island of Colonsay. Both show an admixture of 

 zoo- and phyto-plankton, and of oceanic with neritic 

 forms ; and, contrary to what one might have expected, 

 the gathering which was taken further out in the open 

 sea off Colonsay is the more neritic of the two, and also 

 contains by far the larger numbers of Diatoms, at least 

 ten species being well represented, and most of them, 

 moreover, were neritic. So that the Colonsay gathering 

 might well be described as a phyto-plankton with an 

 admixture of some animals, and also as being neritic in 

 character with a few oceanic forms added, chiefly 

 Copepoda. 



It must be remembered that even if some oceanic 



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