Although the Plymouth Laboratory was opened only on June 30th, investigations have been carried on by the Association for the last two years. These inquiries have necessarily been of a general and preliminary character, but they have resulted in the acquisition of definite precise information on several subjects, in which previously only conjecture or complete ignorance prevailed. This information includes discoveries of some value and completeness in themselves, but its chief importance lies in the fact that it shows in what directions and by what means the instruments of inquiry supplied by the Plymouth Laboratory, and its organisation, can be applied without delay to fruitful work. It was with just this object in view that the Council instituted these preliminary inquiries; without them, when the apparatus of the Laboratory was ready for action, the staff would have had to make tentative experiments before they knew what problems the neighbourhood of Plymouth gave the material for solving. With them the fisheries and the marine Fauna of Plymouth are mapped out, and problems to be worked out are definitely proposed, so that the tanks and the powers of the zoologists can be fully occupied without loss of time.