66 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



towards Niarbyl, No. IV. towards the Calf Island, and 

 No. V. off Spanish Head (fig. 4). The nets to be compared 

 were: — two vertical deep-water, the NTansen and the 

 Petersen-Hensen, and three horizontal, one weigh led and 

 the other two surface. In addition a shear-net gathering 

 was taken on occasions from intermediate waters. Each 

 lianl of the horizontal nets was a 15 minutes one. 



I give here (p. 68) in tabular form, my first state- 

 ment of results, which may require to be modified in 

 detail or supplemented later on, but which may be taken 

 as substantially correct. Whether one looks at the hauls 

 with the same net at the one locality on different days, or 

 at neighbouring localities on the same day, the want of 

 uniformity both in quantity and in quality is striking. 

 The range for all nets is from 05 c.c. to 1G4 c.c., and the 

 same for the Nansen; for the Petersen-Hensen it is from 

 0.5 to 64.5 c.c, for the weighted open net from 5.5 to 41 

 c.c, for the surface nets from 1 c.c to 42'5 c.c, and for 

 the shear-net from 11 to 78'5 c.c The diagram (fig. 9) 

 shows graphically the proportions between these hauls. 



One or two broad features of the collection are 

 obvious. In the earlier part of the time, up to about 

 the middle of April, Diatoms were abundant, and nearly 

 all the gatherings had a greenish tinge. During that 

 period the plants were more abundant in the bottom 

 waters, and the animals at the surface. 



Day after day we found that the two closing vertical 

 nets hauled up from 20 to 10 fathoms were of a brownish- 

 green colour and contained (especially the Nansen) an 

 abundant gathering of Diatoms. The surface nets during 

 this time contained more Copepoda. On April 15th and 

 19th, however, when the change in plankton was taking 

 place the Diatoms are found to be mainly on the surface 

 and the Copepoda below. As an example of wide distri- 



