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TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL WOLOCJICAL SOCIETY. 



areas, such as the neighbourhood of Port Erin, before 

 embarking on wider oceans. 



Convinced of the fundamental importance of such an 

 intensive study, I have spent my three last vacations, the 

 summer of 1906, Easter, 1907, and the summer of 1907 

 in experimenting day after day with various plankton 

 nets under similar and under varying conditions in a 

 limited sea-area off Port Erin, with results that are 

 startling in their diversity. It was obvious that at all 

 these times the plankton was unequally distributed over 

 the depths, the localities and the dates. 



OFF PORT ERIN l.o.M, 



Ym. 4.— Plankton Stations off Port Erin. 



The results obtained in the summer of 190G amounted 

 to 80 gatherings, taken in 40 days, and these were 

 described in our last Annual Report and recorded in 

 more detail by Mr. A. Scott in the Sea-Fisheries Labora- 

 tory Report for 1906. 



With the view of testing the methods further at 

 another time of year, I devoted a month this spring 

 (March 28th to April 27th) to a systematic exploration,* 



* I have used some of these results in a Presidential Address to the Linnean 

 Society on May 25th. 1907, and also laid them in abstract before Section D at the 

 British Association Meeting at Leicester ; but I print them here because of their 

 local bearing, 



