| Summary: | The present thesis consists of three papers recently published by His Majesty's Stationery Office in the series of "Scientific Investigations" issued under the authority of the Fishery board for Scotland. The inclusive title and the subtitles of these papers appear on the respective title-pages and are given in the foregoing contents table. The relationship of the inclusive title to that under which this thesis is presented is discussed in the concluding chapter of the thesis. Appended to the above publications are two shorter papers, one of which has also been published, the other having been communicated on behalf of the writer to the body named on the title-page. All five papers are original in form and in subtance, the work having been performed at the Marine Laboratory of the fishery Board for Scotland in Aberdeen, under the supervision of the Board's Scientific Superintendent, Alexander Bowman, D.Sc., F.R.S.E., on whose initiative the experiments dealt with in the main body of the thesis were carried out. The experiments in question consisted in the liberation of large numbers of specially-prepared, floating bottles, from numerous widespread points in the Northern and Middle North Sea, the southern reaches of the Norwegian Sea and the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Primarily, they were designed to yield information of consequence to marine biological research in connection with the Northern North Sea fisheries and, already, the results so far obtained have been of service in this direction. It may be added that, along with the liberation of drift-bottles, physical observations of the temperature and salinity of the sea water were taken at practically every 'liberation-station' and this material is presently forming the subject of a separate study to which the drift-bottle interpretations are proving a valuable asset. From the biological standpoint the original aim of the drift- bottle work was to obtain an understanding of matters relative to the passive transport of fish eggs, larval forms and indeed, all ...
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