OENERAL SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 135 



Trincomalee, and the native fish-trawling industries. With these and other practical 

 applications of science which he would discover and make known, the time and 

 energies of the Marine Biologist would he more than fully occupied throughout the 

 \ear in useful work for the Colony. 



13. If these recommendations are adopted and a Marine Biologist is permanently 

 charged with the work of conserving and promoting the pearl-oyster and other 

 fisheries, he must he given the means of carrying on his work satisfactorily. For 

 inspecting, dredging, cnltching, and transplanting, a steamer is necessary. It need 

 not he large nor swift, but it must be fit for the work and specially fitted with the 

 tanks, winch, dredges, &c, which will be necessary. He will also require laboratory 

 equipment on shore, and the usual mechanical and clerical assistance ; but it is not 

 obvious that any useful purpose can be served, under the circumstances, by establishing 

 a small laboratory at Aripu or elsewhere in the Gulf of Manaar (as had been suggested). 

 It must be clear to any scientific man who knows the locality that any biological work 

 on the pearl banks must be done at sea, from a ship, during the inspections and 

 fisheries, and cannot be done at all during the monsoons because of the heavy sea 

 and useless exposed shore. At these latter times the necessary laboratory work, 

 supplementing the previous observations at sea, could be done much better at 

 Colombo, at Galle, or at Trincomalee, than at Aripu or Manaar. 



14. Consequently I recommend that the Marine Biological Laboratory, now at 

 Trincomalee, be regarded as the headquarters of the Government Marine Biologist's 

 work ; and that, in the interests both of the various fishing industries and also of 

 scientific investigation in general, the institution be established at once on a permanent 

 basis, with suitable assistance and equipment. The building ought, moreover, to be 

 of sufficient size to accommodate two or three additional zoologists, such as members 

 of the Staff of the Museum and of the Medical College at Colombo, or scientific 

 visitors from Europe. The work of snch men would help in the investigation of the 

 marine fauna and in the elucidation of practical problems, and the laboratory would 

 soon become a credit and an attraction to the Colony. Such an institution would be 

 known throughout the scientific world, and would be visited by students of science 

 from other countries, and it might reasonably be hoped that in time it would perform 

 for the marine biology and the fishing industries of Ceylon very much the same 

 important practical functions as those fulfilled by the celebrated Gardens and 

 Laboratory at Peradeniya for the botany and associated economic problems of 

 the land. 



W. A. Herdman. 



