40 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



duration. The bath gatherings were, of course, always 

 much smaller in quantity than those from the pipes out- 

 side, and I do not think that in any case they gave me an 

 organism that I had not obtained in the other nets. On 

 one occasion (September 27th) I obtained the first Radio- 

 laria (Acanthometra) in an afternoon (1 to 3 p.m.) gathering 

 from the bath, but they occurred also in the day's gather- 

 ing examined at between 6 and 7 p.m., so that the utmost 

 that can be claimed is that the bath gatherings showed 

 that the Radiolaria were not necessarily collected late in 

 the afternoon, but may have entered the net before 3 p.m. 



Even in a case where the bath intermittent gatherings 

 show either the presence or the absence of a particular 

 organism temporarily, one should be cautious about draw- 

 ing conclusions. Many of the pelagic organisms are very 

 wide-spread over the Atlantic, or particular wide areas of 

 it, and the temporary absence may be due to quite minor 

 and irregularly acting causes, such as we usually term 

 " accidental." 



Each day I obtained a record of the temperature both 

 of the water as it passed through my nets and also as 

 drawn direct from the sea. As a rule, the water in the 

 nets was from one to two degrees Fahrenheit higher than 

 the sea. The highest temperature recorded was 60° F., 

 and the lowest 37° F. In crossing the Atlantic from 

 Ireland the temperature got higher daily till about long. 

 30° W., then fell as we approached and went through the 

 Labrador current, and rose again (from 50° F. to 60° F. 

 in 24 hours) after passing through the Straits of Belle Isle. 



In coming back, at the end of September, the tempera- 

 ture fell as we passed down the St. Lawrence from 50° F. 

 near the western end of Anticosti, to 37° F. outside the 

 Straits of Belle Isle, in the Labrador current. Then it 

 rose steadily as we got further across the Atlantic and 



