The researches here described extended for intermittent periods over the years 1906 and 1907, and were primarily intended to embrace inquiry into the food problem of Pilchard, Herring, and Mackerel frequenting the western part of the English Channel. The observations now recorded form, therefore, a part of a wider series.

For the past two and a half years (1906–8) some salmon, which were reared at the Endsleigh Fishery, have been kept under observation in the aquarium of the Plymouth Laboratory.

In sending these fish as smolts to the Laboratory, the Duke of Bedford wished more particularly to obtain information on two questions: firstly, the character of the food of the salmon during its sojourn in the sea, and secondly, the period of that sojourn intervening between the smolt and grilse stages. These and other points of interest that have arisen will be considered in order in giving a general account of the experiment.

(See Eliot on Coryphella beaumonti in Notes on some British Nudibranchs, Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., vol. vii., No. 3, June, 1906, pp. 361–3; and Nils Odhner on Cumanotus laticeps in Northern and Arctic Invertebrates, iii. Opisthobranchia. Kngl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar. Band 41, No. 4, 1907, pp. 29, 80, and 101–2).

In describing (l.c.) Coryphella beaumonti as a new species, I pointed out that in many important characters it differs markedly from the other known Coryphellœ, and might be made the type of a new genus. But I did not create a new genus, thinking it might be well to examine further specimens, both of this animal and of allied forms, before deciding on its place in the classification. In the next year Odhner created (I.c.) the genus Cumanotus to which Coryphella beavmonti is certainly referable, and which is shown by his researches to be well characterized. It is allied to Coryphella inasmuch as it has unperfoliate rhinophores, tentacular angles to the foot, a triseriate radula and denticulate jaws; but it also possesses the following special characters: (1) The oral tentacles are very small and connected by a cutaneous fold which runs across the head; (2) there are several (at least, as many as three) rows of cerata in front of the rhinophores; (3) the verge is deeply grooved, and there is a bursa copulatrix, the entrance to which bears on its upper and lower margin a circular pad, armed on the periphery with twelve small cones terminating in hooks.

On February 27th, the roe of a cod having a testicular portion attached was received at the Laboratory from Messrs. Moodys and Kelly, of Grimsby. It had been taken from a cod caught by a steam trawler fishing in Icelandic waters. Owing to the rough removal of the organs from the fish on the trawling ground, the genital ducts were missing and the region of their origin was ruptured, while the testis had been somewhat damaged in the course of its long journey to Plymouth.

Among a sample of seven small Conger, from 58 to 77 cm. in length, obtained from the Plymouth Fish Quay on 31st March, one was found with unsymmetrical reproductive organs. The other six were immature females with the normal pair of ovaries. The abnormal specimen has a right gonad quite similar to the ovaries of females at the same stage of maturity. It is bandlike in form, extending along the whole length of the abdominal cavity. The inner or left side is covered with smooth peritoneal epithelium (mesoarium). The greater part of the surface of the right (outer) side is raised into transverse lamellæ containing the as yet little-developed ova embedded in fat-tissue. For about one to two millimetres from its free edge, the organ consists of a strip of fat-tissue quite free from germinal cells, and there is a similarly constituted longitudinal fold—here and there divided into a subsidiary one—extending parallel to and about 2 mm. from the free edge and bordering the lamellated germinal area. The ovary is 17.5 cm. long, its greatest width 12 mm., and the widest part of the lamellated area is about 7 mm.

The Council and Officers.

Four ordinary and one special meetings of the Council have been held during the year, at which the average attendance has been ten.

All the meetings have been held in the rooms of the Royal Society at Burlington House, and the Council desire again to express their thanks to the Royal Society for the use of these rooms.