278 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



result simply of the reproductive phases in the life-history 

 and has no connection with hydrographie conditions. 



The adults are gregarious and spawn at much the same 

 time, the larvae hatch out in myriads at about the same 

 time, and may then he caughl in quantities. A notable 

 example of this is the case described in the XXlsi Annual 

 Report of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, p. 37, 

 of an enormous haul of Zoeas taken on April 1st, at Station 

 III, in a very limited area the same net hauled a couple 

 of minutes before having caught none. Twenty-two 

 thousand crab Zoeas were taken by the various nets on 

 that occasion in about seven minutes. 



Inside the bay the largest hauls of crab Zoeas are 

 200 and 300 on August 14th and 15th. They are practi- 

 cally absent from November to March inclusive, and 

 during the remainder of the year occur rarely, in very 

 small numbers. 



" Mitraria " larvae are abundant in the earlier part 

 of the year, and then again in winter — the range being 

 from October to the end of April, with a maximum of 

 1,750 per haul in February. They are only occasionally 

 found, and in small numbers, from May to September. 



Polychaete larvae are more generally distributed and 

 more abundant throughout the year. They reach a 

 maximum in April, when the numbers per haul between 

 April 10th and 23rd are, 260, 1,500, 2,650, 3,800, 600, 

 3,020, 1,330, 2,605, TOO. They did not occur for some 

 days in the middle of August, and the numbers were 

 usually low in November, December and January, but 

 throughout the rest of the year the general run of the 

 figures is several hundreds per haul, occasionally reaching 

 a thousand. 



