THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 39 



MARINE DREDGING EXCURSION. 



The large number of members of the Club who took part in the 

 dredging excursion on Queen's Birthday (24th May, 1895) were 

 favoured with beautiful weather, which, however, strange as it may 

 seem, led to an alteration of their plans. The intention was to 

 try the vicinity of Altona Bay, on the western side of Port Phillip 

 Bay, the contingent from Williamstown in the steam yacht Firefly 

 to meet the party from Brighton in the yacht Starlight about 

 midway across the Bay and proceed in company to the scene of 

 operations. However, the absence of wind prevented the 

 Starlight from carrying out her share of the plan ; consequently 

 the Firefly had to steam right across to Brighton, when after a 

 council of war it was determined to again work the eastern shore. 

 Taking the yacht in tow, we headed for Beaumaris, and during 

 tile run down lunch was disposed of, so that on arrival off 

 Rickard's Point about i p.m. all were ready for work. 



During the run down several kinds of birds were noted. Off 

 Brighton beach a large flock of Musk Ducks, Biziura lobata, 

 attracted attention by their frantic efforts to get out of our reach. 

 Numerous specimens of the Little Penguin, Eiidyj)tula minor, were 

 seen. These birds are not nearly so timid as the Musk Ducks ; 

 in fact, when fishing off the mouth of the Yarra 1 have frequently 

 seen them within a few yards of the boat. Overhead two species 

 of the ubiquitous shag were to be seen — Graculus strictocephalus 

 and G. melanoieacus ; Silver Gulls, Larus Novce-Hollandioi ; 

 Richardson's Skua, Lestris Richardsoni ; and the pretty Bass 

 Straits Tern, Sterna poliocercus. 



The dredges soon brought a large quantity of material for the 

 naturalist on board, such as sponges, tunicata, Crustacea, mollusca, 

 sea-urchins, algcX, polyzoa, hydrozoa, &c., so that we were kept 

 busy bottling up specimens for future examination. On board 

 the steamer we were again successful in obtaining two perfect 

 specimens of the rare mollusc, Nucula Grayii. It is singular 

 that perfect specimens have never been reported from the adjacent 

 beach, though single valves have been occasionally found, and it 

 has been obtained on each of the three dredging trips in this 

 locality. 



For further details of the molluscan fauna obtained by dredging 

 I am indebted to Mr. G. B. Pritchard, who reports as follows : — 



" The principal work done was off Beaumaris and towards 

 Rickard's Point, with a couple of casts off Brighton, but owing to 

 the lateness of the hour when at the latter place there was not 

 time to do much, and what was brought to the surface consisted 

 mostly of dead shells. The deepest dredge was about five 

 fathoms, off Beaumaris, where the bottom was a fine sandy mud, 

 containing a large number of dead shells of Cardium, tenuicostatiim, 

 while a few examples were still living ; also Nucula Grayii, 



