In subjoining the continued results of my statistical inquiries it is necessary to occupy but little space with introductory remarks, since the question has assumed no new features. The suggestions as to size-limits embodied in the draft report of the Parliamentary Committee would, if carried into effect, leave the North Sea fishery practically in statu quo.

On May 4th of the current year a number of small Pleuronectids were captured by the hand in a pool left by the ebb tide at Plymouth Breakwater, and brought to me alive. Two of them were very transparent, and, from their habit of lying on the right side when at rest, evidently sinistral forms. One of them was almost perfectly symmetrical; while in the other the torsion of the facial region and eyes had commenced. The pigmentation had the form of interrupted transverse bands, which were most conspicuous on the dorsal and ventral fins; on the dorsal fin seven bands were indicated. The terminal portion of the original trunk, containing the notochord, was seen at the upper edge of the caudal fin. The neurochord was covered with pigment, forming a very distinct band, situated, however, not in the skin, but in the connective tissue surrounding the neurochord or spinal cord. The mouth was large, and the snout upturned. The pectoral fin was large, the pelvic small. But the most important characteristic was the presence of two straight spines projecting laterally from the auditory region. These have been called otocystic spines by Prof. McIntosh, but I think they would be more appropriately described as periotic spines, as they are evidently projections of the periotic cartilage or bone; to which particular bones of the periotic region they belong has not been determined. Mr. Holt cut sections of the spines in situ, and found that they consisted of a knob of periotic cartilage passing into a mass of undifferentiated cells, the whole forming the core of a dermal spine consisting of hyaline ossified tissue. In my specimens I observed a third spine, much smaller, situated in the region of the frontal bone, behind and above the eye; it was visible in both the stages.

It may be useful to put on record the following notes of renewed attempts to solve the difficult problem of rearing fish larvæ.

After repeated trials with dilute solutions of methylene blue upon larvæ and embryos of a number of the smaller decapod Crustacea, a favourable object for the study of the nervous system was at last found in the embryo of the common lobster. The embryos of this animal are specially advantageous on account of their large size, which enables them to be readily manipulated without much damage being done to their tissues, and also on account of the large size of the individual nerve elements.

The year 1893 was one of exceptional interest to the marine zoologist. During the first two months Plymouth experienced a continuous succession of heavy gales, but towards the middle of March the winds became lighter, and the sea, which had been running remarkably high outside the breakwater, subsided. From that time onwards till the middle of September we enjoyed six months of the most delightful weather,—a period, with scarcely a break, of calm seas and almost cloudless skies. Under the influence of the great heat the temperature of the Channel waters rose continuously, until in August it had attained a point unprecedented for quarter of a century; and it was of the highest interest to observe the effect of this high temperature, and of the prolonged calmness of the sea, upon the floating population of the neighbouring portion of the Channel. Numbers of semi-oceanic forms which rarely reach our shores arrived in remarkable profusion. In June the tow-nets were crowded with Salps, while towards the latter end of August they were almost choked by masses of living Radiolaria.

In recent years the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission has outgrown its older brother, the Report of the Commissioner, and in some respects supplanted it. The last volume of the Report, part xvii, bears the date of publication 1893, but it was only received by us in the present month of June, 1894, and it refers to operations carried out in the two years 1889–91,—in other words, from three to five years ago. The volume consists of three general reports and six appendices. The former are the Report of the Commissioner, that of Mr. Richard Rathbun on the Inquiry respecting Food-fishes and the Fishing-grounds, and that of Mr. Hugh M. Smith on the Inquiry regarding the Methods and Statistics of the Fisheries. The Appendices comprise three special reports, a Review of Sparoid Fishes, by David Starr Jordan and Bert Fesler, an article on Fish Entozoa, and a translation of Haeckel‘s well-known pamphlet, Plankton-Studien.