THE OPEN SEA: ITS NATURAL HISTORY: THE WORLD OF PLANKTON. By Sir Alister C. Hardy. New Naturalist No. 34.

1956 1st edition. 8vo (150 x 223mm). Ppxiv,322. Colour paintings of plankton, b/w photograph plates, b/w illustrations, bibliography. Green buckram, spine titled in gilt.

Comprehensive discussion of the fauna and flora of the open sea - fishes, mammals, molluscs, crustaceans and others. Concentrates on waters adjacent to the British Isles. Nb. Part I is New Naturalist No. 34, and Part II, No. 37. Chapters include: The movement of the waters; Plants of the plankton; Seasons in the sea; Introducing the zooplankton; Little jellyfish and lesser forms of life; Siphonophores and the larger jellyfish; More animals of the plankton - but not the crustaceans; The planktonic crustacea; Pelagic larval forms; The puzzle of vertical migration; Life in the depths; Phosphorescence and photophores; Squids, cuttlefish and kin; Plankton and the fisheries. Well worth a read for many reasons, as is Volume II.