14 LIVERPOOL MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE REPORT. 



■Si prelimiDary Report upon the first year's work before 

 the members of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical 

 Society. 



A proposal was then made that the Council of that Society 

 should undertake the publication of the series of Reports, as 

 an Appendix to the annual volume of Proceedings, and also 

 as a separate publication ; being aided, if necessary, by grants 

 from the other local scientific societies, and by private sub- 

 scriptions. * This proposal was accepted, and the present 

 volume is the result. All the chief groups of invertebrate 

 animals which were collected have been reported upon, but 

 a few of the smaller groups, such as the Rotifera, the 

 Ostracoda, the Turbellaria, and some others, have not yet 

 been overtaken. These, along with supplementary reports 

 upon those larger groups which need them, and monographs 

 upon special animals, and a report upon the fishes of the 

 district which Mr. T. J. Moore has undertaken to draw up, 

 will form the subject matter of a second, and possibly of 

 several additional volumes, which will probably be published 

 by the Committee after one or two years of dredging, and 

 other investigations in the locality. 



In order to render this Fauna of Liverpool Bay as nearly 

 complete as possible, the species recorded by all previous 

 investigators have been discussed along with those actually 

 collected by the Committee. Consequently most of the 

 Reports may be regarded as including records of all the 

 work done upon the particular groups of animals in this 

 District, brought up to date. 



It only remains to record the numerical results of the 

 first year's work of the Committee ; for all further details 

 the separate reports on the groups must be consulted. Prior 



* A list of the subscriptions will be found on p. 371, at the end of this 

 volume. 



