The tiny bivalve mollusc Montacuta (Tellimya) phascolionis (Dautzenberg & Fischer) belongs to the family Montacutidae, which is usually classified in a grouping of a superfamily rank, the Galeommatacea (= Erycinacea, Leptonacea or Leptonoidea) and includes many small and rather obscure species that are found associated with a wide variety of usually burrowing marine invertebrates (see Boss, 1965). M. phascolionis recently has been referred to the genus Tellimya (Chavan, 1960, 1969; Bowden & Heppell, 1968) or removed from the Montacutidae altogether and put into a new monospecific genus, Phascoliophila (Nordsieck, 1969). It is clear that a comprehensive revision of the Montacutidae is badly needed in order to establish the correct position of the present species within the family. However, the present author feels it justified in the interim to follow Ponder (1968) in recognizing Tellimya as a subgenus of Montacuta that includes the species phascolionis.

Malacobdella grossa is recorded from a new host, Cerastoderma edule, and the association appears to be confined to the Shetland Islands. Infection rates were high at five of the seven sites studied and double infections were very common. The commensal population was dominated by large individuals.

Adult and larval stages of Siboglinum fiordicum, collected from 32 to 35 m depth, accumulate measurable quantities of amino acids and glucose from low concentrations. The amino acids are absorbed against a considerable gradient. The glucose and the amino acids are metabolized in the tissues and substantial amounts are respired to give carbon dioxide or volatile organic acids. Under the experimental conditions almost all the metabolism follows aerobic pathways.

A karyometric analysis of the diploid complement of two species of the genus Procerodes (Tricladida: Maricola), both from British waters, has been carried out

The diploid number of Procerodes littoralis, 2n = 14, was established on mitosis from regenerative blastema and the haploid number n = 7 from spermatocyte I stages. All the chromosomes are metacentric, their centromeric index varying from 47·91 in the chromosome 5 to 38·39 in the chromosome 4.

Our knowledge of the export of solids and solutes by streams from different types of catchments has lagged behind that of water yield despite the fact that it is important in the prediction of erosion and landform development as well as the prediction of water quality. To remedy this shortcoming there has developed an increasing interest in export of various substances by small catchments. Gregory & Walling (1974) have described this trend as well as our growing awareness of the need to concern ourselves with the variation of fluvial processes as a function of landform, geology and land use. But because few studies of this sort have been completed in Great Britain, Gregory & Walling stressed the need to understand the controls on sediment and solute production, particularly in a variety of different landforms and geological formations.

Analyses of the jaws of nereid polychaetes have shown zinc to be a major inorganic component amounting to between 0·5 and 2·4% of the dry weight and accounting for up to 40% of the total body burden of zinc. In Nereis diversicolor, zinc concentrations in the jaws are not related to those of the habitat sediments. A high zinc content appears to be a structural characteristic of the nereid jaw.

A compilation has been made of new data on the distribution of the deep-water coralLophelia pertusa(L.) derived from trawling records, grab and dredge stations and submersible dives, together with the few published records. The coral is widely distributed and occurs on all the offshore banks of the north-east Atlantic, with some records from the deepest water of the Minches and Sea of the Hebrides.

Special club-shaped cilia with an expanded tip are seen by both light and electron microscopy on the proboscis of Bonellia viridis in addition to the usual filamentous cilia. Using transmission electron microscopy the club tip is seen to consist of a distally curled axoneme enclosed within a sac-like expansion of the ciliary membrane. The axoneme may describe up to two complete loops inside the membrane sac or may occasionally follow an S-shaped course.

A quantitative analysis of the distribution on the proboscis of both filamentous and club cilia is made. No discrete ciliary tracts are present. However, there is a definite pattern of ciliary density distribution. The cilia are densest on both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the distal fringe of the proboscis. The dorsal fringe cilia are concerned with locomotion and the ventral cilia with food particle uptake. The club cilia are confined to the terminal lobes and neck region of the proboscis. The dorsal surface of the proboscis posterior to the fringe is virtually non-ciliated. The functional significance of the club cilia is discussed.

Submersible observations have been made on‘ patches’ of the deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa (L.) occurring on Rockall Bank, north-east Atlantic. It is suggested that an initial colony gives rise to a ring of younger colonies. These in turn give rise to further rings of colonies, thus enlarging the ‘patch’. The transition from stage to stage depends on portions of living colonies, weakened by clionid sponge attacks, breaking off and falling away from the colony so providing the substrate for the development of later colonies, thus enabling lateral increase in the size of the ‘patch’ to take place.

Contradictory evidence has led to contrasting hypotheses as regards the origin in Actinia equina. L. of the juvenile anemones which may be found being brooded within adults. We have found, in a North Yorkshire population, a very low proportion of males, but these, as well as individuals lacking gonads, often contained young. All young resembled in colour the adults from which they were obtained. Adults maintained in isolation so as to prevent fertilization continued to produce young. Also ova apparently undergoing cell division were found within female gonads. By contrast, small fragments of anemone, although adopting the appearance of larvae, when cultured, do not develop into juveniles. We conclude that within the population studied reproduction is most probably by parthenogenesis.

Annual population changes of four species of Stauromedusae at Plymouth are described. Three of these, Haliclystus auricula, Lucernariopsis campanulata and L. cruxmelitensis, have one generation in a year; Craterolophus convolvulus has two. The completion of the life-cycle of the four Plymouth species within a year is in agreement with Berril's (1962) studies of three species on the west Atlantic coast and with a reinterpretation of Sars's (1846) observations on Lucernaria quadricomis on the coast of Norway.

Infra-red images of sea surface temperature indicate that shelf sea frontal regions around the British Isles are characterized by cyclonic eddies with typical wavelengths between 20 and 40 km and growth time scales in the order of a day. A similar analysis for the shelf-break region of the Celtic Sea based on the interpretation of structures observed in infra-red sattllite images and a survey at sea shows that this region is also characterized by eddies. These eddies are usually associated with a general lowering of sea surface temperature that occurs over the shelf-break region in late summer. In this paper, observed eddy scales are compared with estimates based on theory originally developed for large-scale (3000 km wavelength) atmospheric eddies and the role of eddies in cross-frontal exchange is examined in more detail.

A numerical model of the tides in the neighbourhood of Portland Bill (Pingree & Maddock, 1977; Maddock & Pingree, 1978) indicated that there was some asymmetry in the flood and ebb tidal patterns due to the effects of the Earth's rotation. Thus, in addition to the generation of vorticity due to the bottom frictional torque which becomes large in the high-velocity shoaling region near the promontory, vorticity is generated as columns of water with planetary vorticity are stretched or squashed as they move across water depth contours.

In order to examine the Portland Bill situation in more detail, a model was developed in plane polar coordinates (Pingree & Maddock, 1979). This model allowed the flow to be taken around the promontory without the numerical difficulties associated with corners in rectangular grid meshes and gives increased resolution near the headland where the major changes in tidal structure occur. The regular geometry of the polar model also allows the use of an idealized submarine topography and therefore changes in tidal flow due to imposed beach gradients can readily be examined.

The polar model has now been developed to derive the tidal flow around an idealised circular island surrounded by a uniformly sloping beach gradient. In the absence of effects due to the Earth's rotation the derived tidal structure and the associated patterns of residual flow possess twofold symmetry. In a rotating reference frame, however, some asymmetry in these flow patterns can be detected. In this paper some numerical results showing the hourly tidal streams around an island are derived.

Evidence is presented from a study of Actinia equina var. mesembryanthemum at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, which suggests that brooded young do not represent a random sample from a free-living larval pool. Parents in the laboratory will not accept juveniles placed on their oral disc. A. equina are, therefore, unlikely to be adoptive parents. Esterase heterozygote parents contain only heterozygote young. Sexual reproduction cannot account for this observation unless a parent selects its brood. As A. equina can distinguish self from non-self and juveniles may reproduce asexually, a fertilization - selection - cloning theory of reproduction is considered which could account for what is otherwise a conflicting body of evidence.

During the course of collecting trips made in 1976–8 two anthozoans, the actiniarian Aiptasiogeton comatus (Andres), and the octocoral Cornularia cornucopiae (Pallas) were found in Portland Harbour. Neither species has been previously recorded in British waters. A third species, Isozoanthus sulcatus (Gosse), was collected on the shores of the Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Since this species was last recorded in British waters in 1861 and its true taxonomic status is uncertain it is described here.

A new member of the Chrysophyceae, Rhizochromulina marina gen. et sp.nov. is described by means of both light and electron microscopy of cultured material. Vegetative cells are non-flagellate and amoeboid with many fine beaded filipodia and a single golden-brown chloroplast. Zoospores are fusiform in shape and genuinely uniflagellate with no emergent vestigial second flagellum. They appear to possess the most reduced and phylogenetically advanced type of motile cell organization yet found in the Chrysophyceae.

The early qualitative works on the harpacticoid fauna of the British Isles by T. & A. Scott, Norman, Brady, Gurney and Thompson largely omitted the intertidal psammic biotopes. Nicholls (1935, 1939) did much to redress the situation, describing many new species of interstitial harpacticoids from the sandy shores of the Firth of Clyde. Although his studies were taxonomic, he supplied some useful information on the distribution of the species. Some ecological data is also to be found in subsequent works on the east coast of Ireland (Wells, 1963 a; O'Riordan, 1971), the Exe estuary (Wells, 1963 b) and the Isles of Scilly (Wells, 1961, 1970). The only detailed studies of interstitial harpacticoid zonation on British coasts are those of Harris (1972) for the lower shore at Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, and Mclntyre & Murison (1973) for Firemore Bay, Scotland.

A strain of Zooxanthella microadriatica (Freudenthal) comb.nov. has been isolated from decaying Chondrus crispus (L.) Stackh. The ultrastructure of this isolate has been compared to that of Z. microadriatica inhabiting Cassiopea Peron and Lesueur, 1809, sp. In an aqueous medium the cell cycle of both isolates consists of a coccoid non-motile phase alternating with a thecate motile phase.

Rather little is known of the behaviour of larvaceans, although they are of great importance in the sea as one of the few groups able to exploit the nanoplankton. Of the two larvacean groups, oikopleurids have received most attention: the behaviour of Oikopleura dioica has been studied in detail by Gait (1972, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Washington, Seattle), and some notes on the electrical correlates of behaviour have been given by Gait & Mackie (1971) and by Bone & Mackie (1975) for O. dioica and O. labradoriensis. Much less is known of fritillariid larvaceans and, apart from the brief notes on behaviour by Fol (1872) and by Lohmann (1899) in the course of their classical histological investigations, which were extended by Salensky (1904) and Martini (1909), the only recent investigation of living fritillariids is that of Fenaux (1961) who described the remarkable mode of action of the pyloric cilia.

The hydrodynamic properties of the shell of Chlamys opercularis have been investigated and compared with other Pectinidae. The coefficient of lift increases with increasing current speed and angle of attack. Little benefit is gained by increasing the angle of attack beyond 20 °. Allometric changes in shell shape are not sufficient to counteract the increasing weight of the animal with growth. Flow patterns over the shell indicate that a smooth and attached flow over the body of the shell becomes broken up into a turbulent, eddying wake at angles of attack beyond 20 ° and at current speeds greater than 25 cm s−1. The effect of the auricles is to enhance lift at low speeds and to help maintain stability. It is postulated that large turbulence may be further reduced if the dorsal jets act as jet flaps.