Glycerids are carnivorous polychaetes and Glycera alba, for example, has been shown to feed mainly on errant polychaetes and small crustaceans, chiefly amphipods (Ockelmann & Vahl, 1970). Glycerids inject their prey with a venom containing a toxin and proteinases (Michel & Keil, 1975), produced in discrete glands (Michel, 1966, 1970), by means of four jaws placed symmetrically around the tip of the muscular proboscis. The distal, free half of each jaw is slender and curved, the basal section much broader and enclosing the ‘pulp cavity’. Attached to one side there is a jaw support (‘aileron’), usually V-shaped with unequal prongs but the shape varies considerably between species (see Wolf, 1977). The jaws are operated by strong longitudinal muscles attached to the jaw bases and supports (see Gravier, 1898). Nearly the whole length of the jaw is traversed by a fine venom canal, its position marked on the surface by a linear series of small pores (Fig. 1 A) through which the venom is probably emitted (Charletta & Boyer, 1974). In colour the jaws are a uniform shiny jet-black.

Chthamalus proteus sp. nov. is described as a distinct species based on its clear separation by starch-gel electrophoresis of enzymes. A redescription is given of C. fragilis, a related species, which differs absolutely from C. proteus in 3 out of 16 enzymes. Given the distinction of C. proteus from C. fragilis by enzyme methods, it has been possible to devise morphological criteria, involving simple measurement of the opercular valves and first maxilla, which can separate the two species in 99% of individuals. Although the morphological characters overlap slightly, the enzyme results show no evidence of hybridization. A species previously confused with C. proteus, C. bisinuatus from Brazil, differs considerably in morphology and is briefly redescribed.

Tropical reef corals have been studied extensively in the last hundred years from the geological, ecological and, more recently, from the behavioural and physiological points of view (e.g. Darwin, 1896; Vaughan & Wells, 1943; Wells, 1959; Jones & Endean, 1973, 1976; Horridge, 1957; Shelton, 1975 a, b; Anderson, 1976 a, b; Shelton & McFarlane, 1976 a, b; McFarlane, 1978). By contrast, little attention has been paid to the deep, cold water corals such as Lophelia pertusa (L.) although they are in many ways just as spectacular in appearance and secrete massive calcareous skeletons. Zibrowius (1976) gives some data on the occurrence of Lophelia and its nomenclature while Wilson (1979 a, b) describes its distribution in the north-east Atlantic and its development in ‘patches’ on Rockall Bank. This paper, however, provides the first descriptions of the behaviour and co-ordination of Lophelia and the electrical conduction mechanisms underlying their control. The results are compared with those from similar experiments upon tropical species. They give insights into colony growth and co-ordination and into possible primitive behavioural control mechanisms.

Recently, I wrote (Moore, 1978) that no substantiated records existed for Corophium sextonae Crawford amend. Hurley (Amphipoda) north of Abereiddy Quarry, S. Wales. The records of the species for the West coast of Scotland given by Scarratt (1961, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wales) have been regarded as suspect on the basis of wrongly labelled material from his type collection now (with his kind permission) in my possession. My own investigation of amphipods from kelp holdfasts in the Clyde Sea area and its environs, over many years have failed to produce this species.

C. sextonae has now, however, been identified with certainty from a collection (made on 6 September 1979) of Ascidia mentula Muller taken from a rope suspended (on 26 April 1979) from the U.M.B.S. raft in Linne Mhuirich, a marine lake off Loch Sween, lat. 55° 59′ N, long 5° 39′ W, O.S. ref. NR732853. Both male and ovigerous female C. sextonae were included in the material. They were living in silty tubes attached to the tests of the ascidians, together with Jassa falcata (Montagu) and Microdeutopus anomalus (Rathke).

Personal collections of kelp holdfasts and other algae (Codium, ‘red algal turf’ mostly Bonnemaisonia) in the nearby rapids (ca. 3·2 km distant) at Linne Mhuirich in May 1969 (Moore, 1971, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Leeds) and in June 1974 (Shillaker & Moore, 1978) failed to disclose any C. sextonae (all Corophium were C. bonnellii). C. sextonae may be very localized within Linne Mhuirich, given Moore's (1978) observations on Lundy; the acknowledged unique hydrography of Linne Mhuirich (Kerr, 1912; Lewis & Powell, i960) and the sensitivity of the species to water movement gradients (Hughes, 1975).

The genus Turrisphaera Manton, Sutherland & Oates was described on the basis of material from West Greenland, Resolute Bay and South Alaska (Manton, Sutherland & Oates, 1976). In addition to these localities the genus has later been recorded from New Zealand (Moestrup, 1979) and Denmark (Thomsen, unpublished results). The diagnostic characteristics of the genus are the tower-shaped coccoliths and the small hexagonal crystallites. The two species described, the generic type T. borealis Manton, Sutherland & Oates and T. arctica Manton, Sutherland & Oates (Manton et al. 1976), were distinguished by the mucilage covering of T. arctica, and by a certain difference in the elaboration of the distal part of the coccoliths. Furthermore, in T. arctica the flagellar pole coccoliths were longer than the coccoliths elsewhere on the cell (all coccoliths appear equal in T. borealis), and the crystallites somewhat smaller than those of T. borealis.

A recent review of polychaete diets (Fauchald & Jumars, 1979) considered aphroditids to be slow-moving carnivores, taking microscopic prey if nothing else is available but specializing in slow-moving or sessile prey. This opinion was based on remarks by Day (1967) and on two documented gut analyses of Aphrodita aculeata (Blegvad, 1914; Hunt, 1925). Other reports in the literature were either derived from these few original statements or else gave unsubstantiated accounts of the type of food taken.

In 1964 the late Gunnar Thorson told me that he had seen a specimen of A. aculeata swallowing a large Nereis virens and likened it to a hedgehog eating a snake. This vivid analogy puts Aphrodita in a rather different light, as an active predator capable of dealing with relatively large, powerful prey. In fact Hunt (1925) had recorded remains of ‘Pectinaria, Lumbriconereis, Polynoidae and Nereidae’ in 24 out of 26 specimens containing food. Very young crabs and hermit crabs were recorded in five guts and a nemertean in one. Blegvad (1914) recorded the chief food to be other worms, especially sabellids and terebellids, besides nemerteans, from examination of 50 specimens, 35 of which were empty.

I have kept A. aculeata, obtained from Millport and from Plymouth, in bowls containing several centimetres depth of beach sand in a closed-circuit sea-water system. Worms without sand took no interest in items offered as food, neither did worms which had emerged from the sand and were wandering over the surface, but buried worms fed readily. A variety of living animals was given as potential food including Macoma balthica, Corophium volutator, Nephtys hombergi and Nereis diversicolor.

Facilities for keeping marine fish for experimental purposes or for display to the public are usually run on either an open system with direct supplies of water from the sea, as in the Bergen Aquarium (Rollefsen, 1962), or on a mainly closed system in which the sea water is continually recirculated (Saeki, 1958). The pros and cons of each system are well known and have been discussed in the published papers of the 1960 1st International Congress of Aquarology held in Monaco (Comité Scientifique et Technique du Congrés International d'Aquariologie, 1962–63) and in the report of the ad hoc meeting in 1975 on design and practical operation of research aquarium systems held at Texel, The Netherlands (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, 1975). A combination of the two types of system is often used in research institutions and series of papers on sea-water aquarium designs and methods of operation have been collected by Clark & Clark (1964).

The possibility of dissolved organic compounds acting as complexing or chelating agents in natural waters has received considerable attention in the last two to three decades. Stumm & Morgan (1970) have expressed doubts about the existence of humicmetal ion complexes in natural waters. Strickland (1972) has also stated that although the addition of chelating agents to sea water often improved the growth of phytoplankton, there was little evidence that the function of dissolved organic matter in oceans and lakes was to complex metals so as to increase or decrease their availability to phytoplankton. Strickland argued that even if all dissolved organic carbon were present as a compound of strong complexing ability it would not be able to compete for most metals with inorganic ligands such as chloride, sulphate and hydroxide. However, there is an increasing amount of data indicating that metals in natural waters may exist in chelated forms with dissolved organic matter (see, for example, Davey, Morgan & Erickson, 1973; Chau & Lum-Shue-Chan, 1974).

The Parastenocaridae constitute a family of minute vermiform copepods, principally occurring in subterranean waters, including the subsurface waters of marine beaches. The two species of Parastenocaris referred to in this note were collected in Britain for the first time in 1966, during a survey of the harpacticoid fauna of some beaches on the Isle of Anglesey, North Wales (Geddes, 1972). Numerous females and males of both species were obtained from sand at the source of a spring emerging (at high water mark) on to the beach at Rhosneigr (O.S. Grid Ref. SH 315730).

The previously known distribution of these two Parastenocaris species has been summarized by Enckell (1969), whose paper should be consulted for full references and distribution maps. Briefly, P. phyllura Kiefer has been recorded from fresh water in the central and northern parts of middle Europe, and from brackish-water beaches bordering the Baltic and the North Sea coast of continental Europe, while P. vicesima Klie has been recorded from marine and brackish-water beaches around the Baltic and adjacent parts of the North Sea.

Heavy metals, as well as affecting the growth rate and photosynthesis of algae, have a considerable effect on the size and morphology of algal cells (see, for example, Erickson, 1972; Nuzzi, 1972; Davies, 1974; Kayser, 1976). Changes in the colour of algae in the presence of heavy metals have also been observed (Greenfield, 1942). At metal concentrations resulting in total growth inhibition of algae the cells, although abnormal, are not necessarily dead (see, for example, Nielsen & Kamp-Nielsen, 1970; Erickson, 1972; Nuzzi, 1972; Blankenship & Wilbur, 1975).

In heavy-metal toxicity studies with Ditylum brightwellii (West) Grunow (Canterford & Canterford, 1979) it was observed that low concentrations of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and toxic concentrations of several heavy metals resulted in the formation of abnormal cells. In the present paper factors affecting the formation of abnormal cells are discussed. Experiments were carried out to establish whether or not these abnormal cells could be regenerated.

It has been concluded from studies of the elemental composition of the jaws of four Glycera species that a high concentration of copper is a structural feature of the glycerid jaw (Gibbs & Bryan, 1980). In Glycera gigantea Quatrefages, for example, the whole jaw when dried contains about 1–5% of copper, whilst zinc, calcium and magnesium, in roughly equal amounts, account for a further 1%. Copper is mainly confined to the distal half of the jaw and a concentration of 13% is present in the extreme tip; the other metals are more evenly distributed. Of non-metals, chlorine is concentrated in the distal tip along with the copper but sulphur is fairly evenly distributed and probably accounts for several percent of the dry weight.

In view of these findings, it was decided to investigate the Family Goniadidae, a group of worms that are closely related to the Glyceridae (and often included in that family) but which are readily separated by the different structure of the jaw apparatus and also of the parapodia (see Hartman, 1950). In goniadids the jaw apparatus consists of a pair of larger toothed jaws (macrognaths) plus dorsal and ventral arcs of smaller, H- and Y-shaped jaws (micrognaths), the whole forming a circle around the tip of the proboscis. The present observations were made on Goniada maculata Oersted, the only goniadid species present in the Plymouth area, and a total of four specimens, all about 5 cm in length, from different areas (Salcombe, Rame Grounds and Cawsand Bay: see Marine Biological Association, 1957) were examined.

In making benthic surveys it is often difficult to extract all the animals from the various sediments in good condition. Even the IBP Handbook (Holme & Mclntyre, 1971) does not give comprehensive details of methods for extracting animals from the complete range of sediment types. The greatest difficulty is presented by clays and compacted silt. In recent work we have had very satisfactory results by using the following procedure. Core and grab samples taken in the field are stored in seal-tight buckets for processing in the laboratory. In the case of grab samples taken from boats, preliminary sieving is performed on site and only the resistant sediments returned to the laboratory. The samples are broken into pieces of approximately 100 cm3 or less and stored in 5 % formaldehyde solution using a volume about three times that of the sediment. This serves to fix and preserve the fauna and also helps in the breakdown of clays. At this stage samples may be stored for a long time. Wherever layers of soft mud are found among the resistant material they are washed off, sieved and the fauna preserved separately. The resistant samples are then frozen in a domestic freezer and left for 24 h before thawing. The freezing is very effective in breaking down resistant sediments into small particles, thus releasing the animals, which can readily be removed by elutriation. Normally, most animals seem to be adversely affected by freezing in much the same way as some vegetables lose their consistency when frozen (an exception to this are members of the polychaete family Phyllodocidae). However, the prior treatment with formalin seems to protect the tissues from damage by freezing.