540 Transactions. 



In connection with the rearing of fry, and keeping any 

 forms of life in confinement in tanks and jars, the nsual difficulty 

 was met with where the water-supply was stored in a concrete 

 tank. It was fully a year from the completion of its construc- 

 tion before the water of the storage-tank was sufficiently free 

 from lime-salts to be of any use. Very few organisms could 

 live in it. This necessitated constant renewal of the various 

 receptacles by fresh sea-water carried in from the bay. Such 

 limitations hampered all the work of the kind undertaken, and 

 indeed made continuous experiments almost impossible. These 

 difficulties have now been overcome, and hatching during this 

 last spring was done in the ordinary boxes with the overhead 

 tank-water. 



The Board recognises the desirability of having a com- 

 plete list of the local marine fauna made out, and of having the 

 life-histories worked out of those forms which have an im- 

 portant bearing on the rearing and feeding of fishes. But this 

 is a work of time. In this report an approximately accurate 

 catalogue of the fishes met with in Otago Harbour is given. 

 But whole groups of organisms, some of them of great biological 

 and economic importance, have never been looked into yet, 

 and it will probably be long before systematic work is done 

 upon them. 



The station is fitted for research by any one competent 

 and desirous to undertake it. The Board provides free ac- 

 commodation for two such research naturalists, and board 

 at a small cost can be arranged 'for. The only one who has 

 so far taken advantage of this opportunity is Professor Chil- 

 ton, D.Sc, of Canterbury College, who spent some time at the 

 station last summer. The following papers, published in vol. 

 xxxvii of the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," 

 were the outcome of this visit : " Note on the Function of the 

 Last Pair of Thoracic Legs in the Whale-feed (Grimothea gre- 

 qaria)" and " On the Occurrence of a Species of Cercaria in the 

 Cockle." 



The author has worked with Mr. Anderton, the curator, 

 and is responsible with him for the following notes and records. 



The Flounder. 



Two species of flounder are commonly obtained together 

 in the harbour and along the coast, Rhombosolea plebeia, Bichard- 

 son, and R. tapirina, Gunther, the latter being somewhat easily 

 distinguished by the elongated snout-like upper lip. 



On the 24th July. 1904, Mr. Anderton was out on the steam- 

 trawler " Express," and noted that all the flounders taken 

 were males, and that they were ripe, the milt flowing readily 



