EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The Liverpool Marine liiolo<i'y Coinmittee was constituted 

 in 1885, Avitli the object of investip-atino: tlie Fanna and 

 Flora of the Irish Sea. 



The dredg^ing^, traAvling'jand other collecting- expeditions 

 org-anised bv the Committee have been carried on inter- 

 niittentlv since that time, and a considerable amount 

 of material, both published and unpublished, has been 

 accumulated. Nineteen Annual Reports of the Committee 

 and five volumes dealings with the " Fauna and Flora '" 

 have been issued. At an early stagfe of the investigations 

 it became evident that a Biolog^ical Station or Laboratory 

 on the sea-shore nearer the usual collecting' grounds than 

 Liverpool would be a material assistance in the work. 

 Consequently the Committee, in 188T, established the 

 Puffin Island Biological Station on the North Coast of 

 Anglesey, and latei- on, in 1892, moved to the more 

 commodious and accessible Station at Port Erin in the 

 centre of the rich collecting grounds of the south end of 

 the Isle of Man. A new and larger Biological Station and 

 Fish Hatchery, on a more convenient site, has noAv been 

 erected, and was opened for work in -Tuly, 1902. 



In these nineteen years' experience of a Biological 

 Station (five years at Puffin Island and fourteen at Port 

 Erin), where College students and young amateurs form a 

 larg(^ proportion of the workers, the want has been fre- 

 (jiiently felt of a series of detailed descriptions of the 

 structure of certain common topical animals and planis, 

 chosen as representatives of their groups, and dealt with ])y 

 specialists. The same want has jirobably been felt in other 

 similar instituiions and in many College laboratories. 



