Notes on the breeding of some lamellibranchs from Plymouth and their larvae

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Abstract
A study of the larval stages of different lamellibranchs from Plymouth with a view to determining their importance in the plankton has brought out some interesting facts. It is well known that the free-swimming larvae are much simpler than most of the gastropod veligers, and that the velum is usually entire, having rarely a slight indentation, showing a tendency to be bilobed in the larger forms. They thus resemble in this respect the primitive gastropods. In many of them the velum is lost early in life, and usually the change in form of the shell takes place after metamorphosis. The post-larval growth is therefore an important part of the life history. The first shelled stage is so similar in all species that it is almost impossible to distinguish the different early veligers in the plankton, but in certain cases fertilizations have been made and the larvae reared until they have lost the velum and descend to the bottom when the species, or at least the genus, can usually be identified.
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