Mollusks have been important to humans since our earliest days. Initially, when humans were primarily interested in what they could eat or use, mollusks were important as food, ornaments, and materials for tools. Over the centuries, as human knowledge branched out and individuals started to study the world around them, mollusks were important subjects for learning how things worked. In this volume, the editors and contributors have brought together a broad range of topics within the field of malacology. It is our expectation that these topics will be of interest and use to amateur and professional malacologists.

The first conference on the Marine Biology of the South China Sea was convened in Hong Kong in 1990, to celebrate the opening of the Swire Institute of Marine Science. The second was convened in Guangzhou, China, in 1993. The third conference returned toHong Kong in 1996 and, in a continuing pattern of growth, was attended by 127 scientists and students from 14 countries and territories. Of the 1O4 keynote addresses, papers and posters presented at the meeting, 42 are published here, following critical peer review, under the symposium categories of Taxonomy and Biological Diversity, Biology and Ecology and Coastal Zone Management and Conservation of the Biological Resources, of the South China Sea.Each conference sets its own symposia themes but in view of the rapid, perceived, decline in the marine environment of the South China Sea and the overexploitation of its resources, the 1996 meeting focused its attention on these issues.There are many meetings related to marine science convened by the countries of the South China rim. Some are national, others are international, but most are typically convened by agencies and attendance is restricted to an invited few, usually senior scientists. Europe hosts a European Marine Biology Symposium, that is convened in a different country each year and which sets the meeting's themes. The proceedings of those meetings constitute one of the most authoritative accounts of the marine biology of European waters. The meeting itself provides a forum for scientists and students, so that international collaborative research is now a key feature of European marine science. First convened in 1996, the 32 symposia are a tribute to international co-operation in research in a marine environment that, of itself, knows no boundaries.The South China Sea countries also need such a forum, free of political dogma. This conference proceedings is the third to help promote such an event, hopefully, one day, at a greater frequency than three years. The fourth conference is to be convened in the Philippines in 1999.This volume then is an international perspective on the South China Sea by scientists who research it and are concerned for its future. It contains information that should appeal to marine biologists throughout the world and, in particular, to those in Asia.

Following a three-year cycle, an International Workshop on the Marine Flora and Fauna of Hong Kong and Southern China was convened at the Swire Institute of Marine Science of the University of Hong Kong from 2-20 April 1995. Sixteen scientists from six countries and fifteen scientists and students from Hong Kong investigated aspects of the marine flora and fauna of the Cape d'Aguilar proposed marine reserve and the southeastern waters of Hong Kong. The marine flora and fauna of this area of Hong Kong is poorly known and, like others locally, is threatened by pollution. Such broad-based studies of this area of Hong Kong's waters are needed urgently. The Proceedings of the workshop contain thirty-one original research papers dealing with aspects of the taxonomy and ecology of Hong Kong's marine life with particular reference to the Cape d'Aguilar Marine Reserve and the benthic fauna of its territorial waters. The workshop was sponsored by the University of Hong Kong to bring scientists and students together to study the shores and seas around its infant institute of marine science. The success of the workshop is self-evident in the contents and scope of these proceedings. This venture, like the first workshop, convened in 1977, on the shores of the now disastrously polluted Tolo Harbour, is a landmark publication. It is a significant compilation of wide-ranging research papers on an area of Hong Kong that has been, hitherto, little-studied but which will, one day, be of vital conservation interest to local people, if any of the territory's now threatened marine life is to survive.

An investigation of the La Meseta Formation of Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula, was initiated to provide a detailed systematic catalogue of the molluscan fauna and to utilize the data to establish a biostratigraphical zonation of the shallow-water shelf faunas for the early Tertiary of Antarctica.

Here is one biologist's interpretation of the chronology of life during the last six hundred million years of earth history: an extended essay that draws on the author's own data and a wide-ranging literature survey to discuss the nature and dynamics of evolutionary change in organisms and their biological surroundings. Geerat Vermeij demonstrates that escalation--the process by which species adapt to, or are limited by, their enemies as the latter increase in ability to acquire and retain resources--has been a dominant theme in the history of life despite frequent episodes of extinction.

From 6-25 April 1998, the Tenth International Workshop on the Marine Flora and Fauna of Hong Kong and South China was convened at the Swire Institute of Marine Science of the University of Hong Kong. Thirteen scientists from six countries and twenty-two scientists and students from Hong Kong investigated aspects of the marine flora and fauna of the Cape d'Aguilar Marine Reserve and the southeastern waters of Hong Kong. This was to obtain more information about the newly-established reserve (the only one in Hong Kong) and the changes that had taken place on the seabed in the southern waters since they were dredged between 1992-1995, respectively, and, in the latter case, to see if there had been any subsequent benthic recovery. The Proceedings of the workshop contains thirty-six original research papers dealing with aspects of the taxonomy and anatomy, behaviour and physiology of marine life in Hong Kong and Southern China. Papers also explore aspects of Hong Kong's marine parks and reserves, including the pollution of Hong Kong's marine life with particular reference to the Cape d'Aguilar Marine Reserve, established only in 1996, and the fauna of its territorial southern waters. The Workshop was sponsored by the University of Hong Kong, the Croucher Foundation and the K.C. Wong Foundation so as to bring eminent overseas scientists to Hong Kong to work with their local colleagues and students. The success of the workshop concept is self-evident in the contents and scope of these proceedings. This was the eighth workshop convened in Hong Kong since 1977 and these proceedings have become the single-most important body of information on the long-term changes that have taken place in its marine environment over an extended time-frame. The volumes are also the largest regional repository of information on the marine life of the territorial waters of Hong Kong and the northern rim of the South China Sea. For those with any interest in Hong Kong's marine environment, therefore, this proceedings and its predecessors are essential reading.

This is the annual journal of the Marine Biological Association of Hong Kong. It contains papers on marine subjects of interest to all Asian biologists.