Stafford (1913) rejected the view of many early workers (see Ryder, 1883, 1884; Huxley, 1883; Horst, 1886) that oyster larvae cemented themselves to the substratum with secretions of the mantle edge. He thought that the mantle margin could not be extended sufficiently to form the extensive area of cement that he found on the left valve of cemented larvae. Furthermore, he argued that the mantle could not secrete so much material in the short period that larvae took to cement. He deduced from the much reduced state of the ‘byssus gland’ in settled larvae that this gland was the source of the cement and suggested that the cement was spread over the shell by the foot. Nelson (1924), Prytherch (1934), Cole & Knight-Jones (1939) and Cranfield (19736, c) have clarified the role of the foot in cementing. Nelson (1924) also noted that cementing oyster larvae extended the mantle margin over the substratum but considered that this action spread the cement discharged by the foot and that the folds themselves did not secrete more material. The other authors, like Stafford, have dismissed or ignored any part the mantle folds might play in cementing.

Muscle receptor organs (MRO) are present in the abdomen in a wide variety of higher Crustacea (see review by Alexandrowicz, 1967), though most experimental work on these organs has been carried out on representatives of only the Astacura and Palinura, in which the anatomy is relatively uniform. In the very varied group Anomura, they have been reported from among the Galatheidea, Thalassinidea and Paguridea (Alexandrowicz 1952b; Pilgrim, 1960); in the latter paper, they were shown to have properties physio-logically similar to those of the Astacura and Palinura, with slowly- and fast-adapting components. Stretch sensitive organs also occur in the thorax of many forms, but are of two distinct types there. In the posterior thorax are MRO comparable with those of the abdomen, i.e. comprising receptor cell, specialized muscle and a complex innervation of excitatory and inhibitory nerves as well as sensory fibres. In the more anterior thorax are the relatively very simple N-cells, whose dendrites spread among the fibres of non-specialized muscle and which are not known to possess any accessory innervation (Alexandrowicz, 1952a).

In many of the more general studies on marine zooplankton the part played by siphonophores is frequently ignored or only given a cursory mention. However, their ecological importance is far from insignificant. In this context we are indebted to the late Mr A. K. Totton whose publications have done much to draw attention to the siphonophores and the part which they play in the zooplankton community. His synopsis of the siphonophores (Totton, 1965) is a masterly work from which any student of this fascinating group can derive much benefit.

Nine hundred and fifty-four bass were tagged, mainly by anglers, in the river estuaries and off the coasts of Cornwall, Devonshire, Dorset and Hampshire, England, in 1970 and 1971. To date 59 bass have been recaptured, 86 % by anglers, 12 % by commercial fishermen and 2 % by research vessels. Forty-seven bass were recaptured within 16 km of their release point. Of the 12 bass recaptured at a greater distance, four were taken within 90 days and had moved by an average of 1.4 km/day. From the tag returns and the length distributions of the bass tagged by areas it is concluded that bass form permanent populations in estuaries until they are 2–3 years old, when they move offshore, eventually becoming very mobile as evidenced by the long-distance movements observed.

The turbot Scophthalmus maximus L. is a large teleost flatfish of the family Bothidae. Its range extends from the Adriatic (Faber, 1883) and Mediterranean (Morgan, 1956) northwards to the Norwegian coast, and includes the Baltic Sea and waters surrounding the British Isles. It has been recorded as far north as the Lofoten Islands (Fulton, 1905), and is taken occasionally at Faroe, Iceland and Rockall.

The Monstrilloida form an aberrant group of Copepoda, distinguished by the complete lack, in the adults, of gut and mouth-parts. Sars (1921) divided the group into two sections, one being the Monstrilloida Cyclopimorpha, comprising a single family, now called the Thespesiopsyllidae (see Wilson, 1932), with two genera. The larvae of Thespesiopsyllus are gut parasites of ophiuroids (Bresciani & Liitzen, 1962). The second genus, Orientopsyllus, was described by Sewell (1949) from the Indian Ocean.

The second section, the Monstrilloida Genuina, comprises the single family Monstrillidae, various authors (Malaquin, 1901; Sars, 1921; Rose, 1933; Davis, 1949) differing in their division of this into genera. The present author regards the family as consisting of three genera, Monstrilla Dana, 1848, Thaumaleus Kroyer, 1846, and Monstrillopsis Sars, 1921, separated according to the criteria listed in Table 1.

The question of how organisms living below 1000 metres depth in the oceans obtain food in sufficient quantity to survive has lately received a lot of attention (Vinogradov, 1968; Sanders & Hessler, 1969; Fournier, 1972). The oldest and simplest theory, first advocated by Agassiz (1888), is that deep-sea organisms are nourished by a ‘rain’ of organic detritus from overlying surface waters. Detritus is defined to include all organic particles, living and dead, which sink passively. An alternate proposal by Riley (1951), Vinogradov (1962) and Wickstead (1962) is that the main supply of food for deep-sea plankton is conveyed from the euphotic zone by overlapping vertical migratory plankters.

There is increasing evidence that the specific growth rates of phytoplankton are hyperbolically related to the intracellular concentrations of rate-determining nutrients by expressions of the Michaelis-Menten type used in the study of enzyme reaction kinetics (see, for example, Caperon, 1968; Droop, 1968; Davies, 1970; Paasche, 1973). This has led us to inquire whether there might also be relationships, analogous to those which describe the effect of inhibitors upon the rates of enzyme reactions (Dixon & Webb, 1958) which can be applied to the growth of phytoplankton in the presence of sublethal levels of toxic substances.

In 1908 Lohmann described a small dinoflagellate which appeared to lack a sulcus and was therefore placed in a new genus – Protodinium. The type species, P. simplex (Text-fig, IA) was broadly ellipsoidal with broad rounded apices, circular in cross-section and about 1–5 times as long as broad. The girdle was poorly defined, but was more or less median in position. The nucleus was relatively large and centrally located and yellow leaf-life chloroplasts, four to many in number, were arranged in the periphery of the cell.

A large number of nanoplankton species originally found in the sea around Britain have now been collected from other northern temperate waters (see Leadbeater, 1972 c; Manton & Leadbeater, 1974). It was, therefore, of considerable interest to collect nano-plankton from warmer waters such as those of the Adriatic and Mediterranean. The larger plankton of both the Adriatic and Mediterranean has been the subject of investigation by a succession of scientists from many countries (for references see Tregouboff, 1952). Whilst many workers acknowledged the importance of the smaller plankton from these areas (e.g. Bernard, 1958; Lalami-Taleb, 1971) only a few have attempted to study and identify species belonging to this group. In this respect the meticulous work of Lohmann (1902a, 1911) and Schiller (19136, 19256) requires special mention. Lohmann (1902a), working on the phytoplankton from the coast of Sicily, first used the technique of pumping sea water through filter paper and in this way he was able to collect and identify many minute species for which he later suggested the name ‘ Nannoplankton’ (Lohmann, 1911). On a later excursion to the Atlantic Ocean, Lohmann (1911) found the gentle centrifugation of sea-water samples was a more satisfactory and less destructive way of concentrating small cells. Schiller's most important contribution concerns a phytoplankton study carried out as part of an international hydrobiological survey of the Adriatic Sea during the years 1911–14. Schiller's findings confirmed many of Lohmann's previous observations and added a further range of new species including many green flagellates (Schiller, 1913 6, 1925b).

This paper reports the first phase of an extended exercise in benthic ecology, involving both long- and short-term aims. The short-term aim is to examine the benthic fauna of representative substrate types for a period of a year and to compute the net secondary production of the infaunal macrofauna in terms of ash-free dry weight per square metre per annum. The intention is to identify from among the bulk of species those animals which have the highest productive capacity, to rank these in order of productive importance, and finally to give our best estimate of the production of the animal assemblage as a whole.

Surveys of marine benthic distributions are usually performed by sampling from a vessel capable of handling the heavy sampling devices necessary. Because of the inability of such vessels to work in very shallow water or close to the shore the area just beyond the intertidal zone is inaccessible to investigation except by a special vessel (e.g. Mclntyre & Eleftheriou, 1968) or by using diving techniques (e.g. Hughes & Thomas, 1971). This has created a gap in our knowledge of this area, which may be of some importance in reflecting adaptation to effects of land on sea which are not complicated by the effects of tidal exposure.

Diversity is one of the most important parameters used in the description of a community; several theories relating diversity to other phenomena as predation, competition and stability have been proposed (Pianka, 1966). As a result of the increasing interest in diversity a number of studies have appeared during recent years, but the meiofauna has until recently been almost completely neglected, rather surprisingly when one considers the importance of this group of organisms in all marine benthic communities. Coull (1972) studied recently the diversity of harpacticoid copepods, with nematodes the major meiobenthic component, along the North Carolina shelf and in the deep sea. Warwick & Buchanan (1970) appear to be the only ones to have studied diversity in nematode communities, using α of the logarithmic series (Fisher, Corbett & Williams, 1943) as a diversity measure. The paucity of data seems primarily to be due to the taxonomic difficulties encountered in studying nematodes.