EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The Liverpool Marine Jiiology Coiumittee was constituted 

 in 1886, with the object of investigating the Fauna and 

 Flora of the Irish Sea. 



The dredging, trawling, and other collecting expeditions 

 organised hv the Committee have been carried on inter- 

 mittently since that time, and a considerable amount 

 of material, both published and unpublished, has been 

 accumulated. Fourteen 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. 

 Consequent!}^ the Committee, in 1887, established the 

 PufKn Island Biological Station on the North Coast of 

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

 commodious and convenient Station at Port Erin in the 

 centre of the rich collecting grounds of the south end of 

 the Isle of Man. 



In these thirteen years" experience of a Biological 

 Station (five years at Puffin Island and eight at Port Erin), 

 where College students and young amateurs formed a large 

 proportion of the workers, the want has been constantly 

 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. 



The objects of the Committee and of the workers at the 

 Biological Station have hitherto been chiefly faunistic and 

 speciographic. The work must necessarily be so at first 



