EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



THE Liverpool Marine Biology Committee was constituted 

 in 1885, with the object of investigating the Fauna and 

 Flora of the Irish Sea. 



The dredging, trawling, and other collecting expeditions 

 organised by the Committee have been carried on inter- 

 mittently since that time, and a considerable amount of 

 material, both published and unpublished, has been accu- 

 mulated. Twenty-one Annual Reports of the Committee 

 and five volumes dealing with the " Fauna and Flora " 

 have been issued. At an early stage of the investigations 

 it became evident that a Biological Station or Laboratory 

 on the sea-shore nearer the usual collecting grounds than 

 Liverpool would be a material assistance in the work. 

 Consequently the Committee, in 1887, established the 

 Puffin Island Biological Station on the North Coast of 

 Anglesey, and later on, in 1892, moved to the more 

 commodious and accessible Station at Port Erin in the 

 centre of the rich collecting grounds of the south end of 

 the Isle of Man. A new and larger Biological Station and 

 Fish Hatchery, on a more convenient site, has since been 

 erected, and was opened for work in July, 1902. 



In these twenty-one years' experience of a Biological 

 Station (five years at Puffin Island and sixteen at Port 

 Erin), where College students and young amateurs form a 

 large proportion of the workers, the want has been fre- 

 quently felt of a series of detailed descriptions of the 

 structure of certain common typical animals and plants, 

 chosen as representatives of their groups, and dealt with by 

 specialists. The same want has probably been felt in other 

 similar institutions and in many College laboratories. 



