The present report deals with the young fish which were collected in the neighbourhood of Plymouth during the summer and autumn of 1919, from the beginning of July to the end of September, by small meshed nets operated from the Association's steamer Oithona. It is a supplement to Dr. Allen's report on the “Post-larval Teleosteans collected near Plymouth during the Summer of 1914,” published in Vol. XI, No. 2 (May, 1917), of this Journal, and to the writer's “General Report on the Larval and Post-larval Teleosteans in Plymouth Waters” in Vol. X, No. 2 (June, 1914).

The total number of fish examined amounts to 16,400, which are referable to 24 families, 39 genera and 71 species. All the forms are stages in the life histories of fishes, which are well known as adults.

The pelagic young of the species of Gadus and Pleuronectes are poorly represented in the catches, but this is not surprising when one considers the lateness in the year when the hauls were made. Similarly the young of early spawners like the Herring are absent.

The pelagic young of the Hake (Merluccius merluccius) appear for the first time since investigations with small meshed nets have been undertaken in the Plymouth area, the only other records of their occurrence in the western area of the English Channel being those which were taken by the Danish research steamer Thor, vide Schmidt (1909).

The larvæ of the Decapod Macrura occur throughout the year in the tow-nettings taken in Plymouth Sound; while during the summer months they form an important and conspicuous feature of the coastal plankton.

In only a few cases have their life-histories been fully worked out, owing probably to the difficulty of rearing the larvæ under artificial conditions; and the literature on the subject is consequently both scanty and scattered. It has therefore been suggested that a brief review of the larvæ already described, together with a few additional ones which have been identified during two years' examination of the Plymouth plankton, from 1917–1919, might be of some use to future investigators.

The object of the present paper is to enable future workers to see at a glance how far these forms have been investigated, and especially to facilitate the identification of the living larvæ from the tow-nets.

No attempt has been made to describe the appendages in detail, as such particulars can generally be found in the literature cited. A general outline drawing is given of the more important forms in their first larval stage, and a figure of the telson and uropods in the fourth or last larval stage is also shown.

As the coloration of the larva is often of great assistance in identifying the living animal, it is here described rather fully, and, whenever possible, the drawings and the colour notes have been made from the living larva. In cases where no direct observations were available the colour descriptions are quoted from other authorities.

The well-known work of Hensen (1887) was the first serious attempt to determine the actual number of individual plankton organisms in sea-water. Hensen's method consisted in straining a vertical column of water through a net of fine-meshed bolting silk having 6,000 to 6,500 meshes per square centimetre, the average length of the side of a mesh being 50 µ. A carefully measured sample of the organisms retained by the net was taken and the number of organisms in it counted. From this, since the area of the mouth of the net and the distance through which it was drawn were known, the number of organisms in a unit volume (1 litre) of water could be calculated, with the help of a coefficient of filtration for the particular pattern of net employed, which was determined experimentally. Many small organisms, however, escaped through the meshes of the net, and Lohmann (1902, 1908) made a special study of these by filtering through hard filter paper or closely woven taffeta silk, by an examination of the filtering apparatus in the “houses” of Appendicularians, and finally, for the quantitative estimation of the smallest organisms of all, by subjecting samples of sea-water to the action of a centrifuge making 1,400 revolutions per minute for a period of 7 minutes. The use of the centrifuge has been continued by Gran (1915) and by Lebour (1917). For the full literature of the subject the reader is referred to Gran (1915) and Lohmann (1911). In the course of my work on the cultivation of plankton diatoms (1910, 1911) I became convinced that even the quantitative method based on the use of the centrifuge fell very far short of giving the total number of organisms actually present in a sample of sea-water, and the results recorded in the present paper show that this is certainly the case.

The family Raiidæ belongs to the division Batoidei of the sub-order Hypotremata, and is represented by the principal genera Raia, Psammobatis, and Sympterygia (Regan, 1906). The genus Raia (an altered spelling of Raja) was instituted by Linnæus, after Artedi, for the type Raja batis in the Systema Naturæ, Ed. X, Vol. I, 1758. The species are numerous and mostly of northern distribution.

The post-larval stages of Ammodytes species captured in the young fish trawl and small-meshed nets during the cruises of s.s. Oithona in the year 1919 were separable into two well-defined series, A and B respectively. Details of the hauls of the trawl and nets with dates and localities are to be found on pages 210–212 of Mr. R. S. Clark's account of the cruises in the present volume.

Considering the adult forms of Ammodytes known to occur in Plymouth waters, it is observed that Ammodytes lanceolatus, Lesauvage, and Ammodytes tobianus, L. are frequently met with, but no record is to hand at present of the occurrence of Ammodytes cicerellus, Rafin., although the latter has been taken frequently in the Atlantic. In regard to the larvæ and post-larvæ, none comparable to those assigned to A. cicerellus by Louis Fage (1, p. 17) have been described previously as occurring in this district, nor have such forms revealed themselves in the material under present consideration.

In endeavouring to identify the post-larvæ of any species, a study of the characters of the adults is often of great help, but in the case of Ammodytes species the only features of the adult which seem to be of value in this respect are the number of vertebræ and the relative length of the head to the total length of the body, and even so these characters, on account of the difficulty of determining them, are not so helpful as they would appear to be. Other characters have therefore to be sought for, and the following are those by which Series A and B have been distinguished:—

During the year 1918 several young fish brought in alive from the tow-nets were kept in small aërated aquaria at an even temperature and fed on plankton. In this way feeding habits were noted and some post-larval fish went through a metamorphosis into the adult form, notably Labrus bergylta the Ballan Wrasse, Solea vulgaris the Sole, Solea lascaris the Lemon Sole, and three species of Lepadogaster. Young Whiting and Pollack were also kept alive for some months and fed eagerly on most of the food that was given to them.

The young clupeoid material which had been collected from 1913 onwards and sorted out with a view to future biological study, especially of the Pilchard, was handed over to me by Mr. R. S. Clark with the main object of differentiating the three species Pilchard, Herring and Sprat. A research was therefore undertaken to find out the best way of distinguishing them through all their life history until metamorphosis. This was practically finished when the thesis by Fage (1920) on young clupeoids of the “Thor” expedition was published, rendering a large part of my work unnecessary, as, thanks to him, it is now almost impossible to mistake them at any period of their development, and they are clearly differentiated at any time in their life history.

Following the researches on the food of young fishes, it was thought advisable to investigate the food of the planktonic invertebrates. Whenever possible, therefore, the food of the larger animals brought in by the tow-nets was noted, and also that of many of the smaller creatures down to some of the unicellular organisms, such as the tintinnids and those members of the Peridiniales which are holozoic.

With the larger animals it was hoped to find which of them actually ate the young fishes, and by investigating their food in general ascertain how much they were actually competitors with the fishes.

The present work is offered as a preliminary, and it is hoped to continue it, following it up especially with more experimental work on the living animals.

The tow-nettings were examined fresh and the food noted. Sometimes a few hours elapsed between the taking of the sample and the examination, so that some of the catch was moribund in the jar. There is always the objection that the food might have been taken in the jar whilst the plankton was being brought in, and it is a matter of general observation that many medusæ and various pelagic animals will devour young fishes and almost anything living when crowded up with them in the hauls. In many of the organisms examined, however, the nature of the food was so consistent in various hauls and from various localities that it seems almost impossible to believe that it is merely accidental, and it is probable that what food one usually finds inside any planktonic animal is natural to it.

The investigation of the food contents in the stomachs of young fishes was included in the scheme of scientific investigations drawn up and initiated by Professor Herdman for the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee nearly thirty years ago. The lengthy series of Annual Reports contain here and there accounts of the observations made on the stomach contents of various Pleuronectidæ captured close inshore, and the pelagic stages of other fishes caught from time to time in the plankton tow-nets. No systematic attempt has, however, been made, in connection with the investigation of the Irish Sea, to determine the food of any particular species of fish during the early part of its life history.

Other observers working in other areas, notably Dr. Marie Lebour at Plymouth, have added very much to our knowledge of the early food of young fishes. Dr. Lebour's reports, published in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association, Vols. XI and XII, deal with a very large number of larval and post-larval stages of the more important food fishes caught in the tow-nets and young fish-trawl in Plymouth Sound and beyond.

The present report gives an account of the food contained in the stomachs of young plaice (Pleuronectes platessa, Linn.) from a few days after hatching to about five months old. The samples examined in April and May were taken from the spawning pond at Port Erin, Isle of Man, where they had hatched from the pelagic eggs spawned by the adult plaice early in 1921. The later stages examined during May to August represented young plaice hatched in the open sea about the same time as those in the pond, and which had made their way close inshore.

On September 17th, 1919, a specimen of Leptocephalus Congri vulgaris (L. Morrisii) was captured in “bottom” haul No. 69 of the young fish trawl in locality Eddystone bearing S. by W. (magnetic) 1½ miles, over a depth of 31 fathoms. It was alive and active when taken, measuring between 115 and 120 mm. in length, and has been kept alive up to the present date in a glass aquarium under circulation. It was at a fairly advanced stage of development, intermediate between those exhibited in Figs. 2 and 3, Pl. I of Schmidt (1), the dorsal fin commencing slightly farther back than in Fig. 3, and the median row of pigment spots along either side of the body not extending forward beyond about 1 cm. in front of the commencement of the dorsal fin. There is a close resemblance also to the specimen figured by Fulton (2), with the exception that, as just pointed out, the median row of pigment along the body on either side does not reach forward quite to the head, and in addition the pigment spots at the base of the dorsal fin rays are only two or three in number, situated at the extreme posterior end of the fin.

Since the date of capture, observations 'have been made periodically and certain measurements taken as accurately as possible, but on account of the movements of the fish the latter could only be obtained approximately.

Whilst investigating the food of young fishes in general (Lebour, 1918–1919–1920) some thousands of young Clupeoids were examined, with the result that by far the larger proportion of post-larvæ were found to be empty. Here and there, however, food was present, and by bringing these records of 1917 to 1919 together, with some from 1920 and 1921, we have a good idea of the food of our three common Clupeoids—Herring, Sprat and Pilchard—in their young stages.

A probable reason for this apparent absence of food in the transparent stages is that the food must be very quickly digested on account of its being so conspicuous; thus it is probably taken only at long intervals and rapidly got rid of. It would follow that under these circumstances we should only occasionally catch the fish when food was inside it.

The observations on the food of the young Herring are perhaps the most interesting of the three on account of the fact that it eats solid food some time before the yolk sac is absorbed, the mouth being open when the fish is hatched, whereas the Sprat and Pilchard, being much less advanced, are only able to feed on outside food much nearer the time when the yolk sac disappears. Unfortunately we have no records of Pilchard food in the very young stages (under 12 mm.), green food remains being found in those of the Sprat before the yolk sac has completely disappeared.

Investigation of the food of larval and post-larval fish from the townets has been continued throughout the year (1918) in the same way as previously, by examining the contents of stomach and intestine in the fresh state. From May 24th a new big net made of stramin, with a wooden frame 36 inches by 25 inches, was used in addition to the ordinary tow-nets. Any live specimens, and these were chiefly caught in the big net, were kept in small aërated aquaria standing in running water and fed with plankton in order to see, when possible, what food they ate. In this way a few post-larval fish went through the metamorphosis into the adult form. Details of these will be found in another paper in the same number of the Journal (page 9).

The tow-nettings were regularly examined by Miss Webb in order to see whether the fish were feeding on what was commonest at the moment, and this was found to be usually the case, so far as the Copepods were concerned, although most of the young fish seemed to select their food to a certain extent. In any month the Copepods which are at that time commonest in the plankton are those most eaten by the young fish, but most of them have preferences and select in various degrees. Thus in June Calanus finmarchicus and Acartia clausi were the commonest Copepods, Temora longicornis coming next, Pseudocalanus elongatus and Oithona similis not occurring so frequently. The commonest young fish in the tow-nets in the same month were the Whiting, Pollack, Rockling and Ballan Wrasse (Labrus bergylta).

The post-larval blennies taken off Plymouth during recent years have been assigned to three species, namely, Blennius ocellaris L., Bl. pholis L., and Bl. gattorugine L. The process of identification, however, has emphasised the need for the revision of the available descriptions and illustrations of the various stages in development, and I have, therefore, thought it desirable to report on the Plymouth forms and give drawings of them.

Blennius Ocellaris (12 rays to the pectorals).

Ehrenbaum (2, p. 83) has copied two figures of the young of this species which were originally produced by Holt (5, p. 45), and it is somewhat unfortunate that both need to be commented upon. The first is satisfactory as a representation of the appearance of a larva some time after hatching, but the length is wrongly given as 6.3 mm. Garstang (4, p. 74) explained that this was an error in transcription, and, after a re-examination of Holt's specimens, he found that the total length was 4.6 mm. (varying between 4.55 and 4.65). The second figure, depicting a young fish of 18 mm., which Holt tentatively assigned to Bl. ocellaris, was taken exception to by Garstang and the identification questioned, and it must be admitted that it does not portray satisfactorily the characters of the species.

The full account of the rearing of the young from the egg by Garstang (4) was unfortunately not illustrated; but as several of his original specimens are in the Plymouth collection, I have been able to identify quite readily the more recently captured examples and have made a series of drawings which are given below (Figs. 1 to 4).

In view of the fact that dogfishes are now of undoubted importance as marketable food fishes, it is necessary that the life-history of each of the species concerned should receive closer attention than hitherto. The present publication is the result of an endeavour to gain a personal working knowledge of the general life-history of the species which are landed at Plymouth. In carrying out a scheme of work of this kind it is certain that many of the observations made will have already been carried out previously by other workers, but, nevertheless, the results obtained are of value, not only in regard to the degree of confirmation which they afford, but also in the building up of an account of the life-history under the local conditions. In some instances, too, it will be seen that the actual numeric results in themselves are of little statistical value, but they yield very interesting suggestions which may be confirmed or disproved by a repetition of the experiments on a larger scale. I express my thanks to the fish-buyers at Plymouth fish-market, particularly Mr. J. Vanstone, for their kindness in allowing me to handle their fish before dispatch, and for their assistance in obtaining a regular supply of material for many months.

The eggs of Gobius minutus and Gobius microps are already known, Petersen (1892, 1917) having distinguished between them and figured them. Apparently the only mention of those of Gobius pictus is by Holt and Byrne (1901) who give the size of the eggs as about 0.80 mm. high by 0.65 mm. broad. Gobius minutus and pictus often occur together in the Sound and at the mouth of the Cattewater, but pictus is chiefly to be found near coarse sandy bottoms such as one gets near Duke Rock and New Grounds. Gobius microps occurs usually higher up the rivers, but the eggs and young are to be found occasionally in the Sound in the same localities as minutus and pictus.

Shells with eggs on them are commonly dredged in the Sound, those between Plymouth and the Breakwater are usually minutus, but pictus eggs are dredged from New Grounds and microps sometimes in the Catte-water.

In order to distinguish the eggs of these three species, and especially to obtain the eggs of G. pictus, adults of all three species were isolated in separate tanks with shells on the bottom on which the fish laid their eggs. The adults of minutus were from the Cattewater, those of pictus from New Grounds, and microps from Chelson Meadow, which opens into the Laira and where the water varies much in salinity, from almost fresh to ordinary sea-water strength. G. minutus and pictus were put into the tanks into ordinary running sea-water, straight from the vessel in which they were brought in from the dredge.

Several Gobius species and also Aphya and Crystallogobius are common near Plymouth, from up the estuaries in the neighbourhood of Saltash to the west and Chelson Meadow to the east, as far as the open sea, well beyond Rame Head and the Eddystone Lighthouse. It has, however, always been difficult to determine the young of the various species as they usually differ very little from one another and it is hoped that the following notes may be a help in the elucidation of the subject.

Upogebia deltura Leach and Upogebia stellata (Mont.) are both of common occurrence on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, but in the adult stage they are not easily obtained, owing to their burrowing habits. The larvæ, however, are very common in the tow-nets, occurring throughout the year with the exception of the midwinter months, and are particularly plentiful from June to August. The two species are closely allied, and for some time it was believed that the differences between them might be merely sexual, and not specific (Bell 1853). They are now clearly recognised as separate and distinct species, and De Morgan (1910) has obtained males and females of both forms. Upogebia deltura Leach may be distinguished by its greater size, sometimes five or six inches in length when full-grown, as well as by its broad abdomen with soft abdominal pleura. The two joints of the chela on the first thoracic leg are almost equal in length. Upogebia stellata (Mont.) is an altogether smaller and more slender animal, seldom exceeding two and a half inches in length. The abdomen is narrower, and the fixed finger of the chela very much shorter than the dactylus. There is also a small point on the side of the carapace, just over the base of the second antenna, which has been established as a specific character by De Morgan (1910). In the living state the body of the animal is covered with orange-red spots (hence its name stellata), while Upogebia deltura Leach is of a uniform dirty cream colour.

Since 1912 extensive investigations have been carried on in the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth on the genetics of Gammarus Chevreuxi Sexton, a brackish-water amphipod (Allen and Sexton '17 and '20, see also Sexton '13 and Sexton and Matthews '13).

During the course of the work, numerous individuals have appeared showing abnormalities in sexual behaviour or structure. In view of the interest attaching to such forms, especially after the work of Goldschmidt ('20), Banta ('16), Sturtevant ('20) and others, it was deemed advisable to collate and publish the available data in spite of their some what fragmentary character.

In normal circumstances, the males of Gammarus chevreuxi mate with the females some days (3 to 9 days) before fertilisation is due to take place. Unless the female is mated for the first time she will normally be carrying in her brood-pouch a brood of developing embryos. After hatching, the young are carried about 24 hours before extrusion, and during that time they come to the anterior end of the brood-pouch and feed on what the mother is eating. Finally they are extruded by a voluntary opening of the brood-pouch. Immediately afterwards the female moults, whereupon fertilisation occurs and a new batch of eggs is extruded into the pouch.

The pair have by now separated, and remain separated usually until the embryos have gone through about half their development in the pouch.

Cannibalism is of fairly frequent occurrence, the male eating the female immediately after she has moulted. It is extremely rare for the normal female to eat a male.

Six species of Wrasses occur in the adult stage in the neighbourhood of Plymouth (Clark 3, p. 217), namely, Labrus bergylta Asc., Labrus mixtus (L.), Ctenolabrus rupestris (L.), Crenilabrus melops (L.), Centrolabrus exoletus L., and Julis julis (L.).

The investigation of the food of larval and post-larval fish from Plymouth Sound and beyond for three years has brought out some interesting facts. For the first two years fresh material from the tow-nets was examined together with old material from the Young Fish Trawl (Lebour, 1918, 1919). During the present year, in addition to the tow-nettings, fresh material from the Young Fish Trawl was also available from July to the end of September, and several fish from outside the Sound examined which had not been obtainable for the last two years. We thus have a fair number of young Mackerel, Ling, Hake and Gurnard and several others.