MAKINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN 277 



members of the Committee (Professor Herdman and 

 another) now settle down beside it to pass the entire 

 mass in review inch by inch, working it across a small 

 space of bare deck and tm^ning over every shell, stone and 

 specimen with an iron spoon, so as to ensure that nothing 

 escapes observation and due record in the note-book. In 

 the meantime the contents of the bottom tow-net have 

 been dealt with by Mr. Thompson, and the apparatus has 

 been lowered for a second, haul, or the vessel is steaming 

 on to a new locality. Then Professor Herdman selects a 

 fair sample of the deposit for preservation (for the Geo- 

 logical Survey) in a small canvas bag (10 by 5 inches), 

 care being taken to include some of the characteristic 

 bottom animals— shells, ophiuroids, polyzoa, &c. After 

 this sample has been removed, and any special animals 

 required have been picked out and put into store-bottles, 

 the whole of the remainder of the haul is passed gradually 

 through our set of three sieves (meshes f inch, ^ inch, 

 and I inch respectively), which work up and down in a 

 tall iron cylinder filled with sea-water. The sieves are 

 disconnected and examined at intervals, and in this way 

 many of the smaller animals of all groups are detected 

 and picked out. Finally, the water in which the sieves 

 have been plunging is all strained by Mr. Thompson 

 through his fine silk net, and in this way many of the 

 rarer bottom Copepoda are obtained, while the finer sandy 

 and muddy deposits retained by the finest sieve or in the 

 bottom of the cylinder are packed in canvas bags by Mr. 

 Alfred Leicester for further examination at home. These 

 contain, of course, many minute Mollusca, Ostracoda, and 

 Foraminifera. By the time all these processes have been 

 completed the dredge has usually been hauled again, and 

 a fresh heap is lying on the deck awaiting investigation. 

 On a successful trip the members of the party, on an 



