80 director's report. 



The list of persons working at the Laboratory also includes five 

 students from Oxford and Cambridge, who have visited us during their 

 vacations, and have engaged in general study of the animals found here^ 

 under the direction of Mr. Garstang. This is, I am convinced, a useful 

 extension of the work of the Laboratory, as the study of living animals, 

 under their natural conditions, has not in the past received that atten- 

 tion at the Universities which is due to it. The students who have 

 worked here have, I believe, acquired a very valuable additional insight 

 into their subject, and a few weeks spent, as it were, in the midst 

 of a marine fauna, cannot but have a beneficial influence on their 

 future studies. It is to be hoped that in future years many more 

 students will visit us in this way, and that those who have been here 

 already will return to carry on research. 



Professor Weldon has been engaged in an attempt to determine the 

 difTerence in the amount of abnormality in individual crabs at different 

 ages. In order to do this, it has been necessary to fit up an apparatus, 

 by means of which some 500 crabs can be kept in separate bottles, with 

 a current of sea-water running through each bottle. To keep these 

 bottles properly cleaned, and the crabs fed daily, has involved a very 

 considerable amount of labour, and as, in addition to this, the individual 

 crabs have to be measured at at least two different ages, the whole 

 investigation is one which can only be carried on at the expense of 

 a great deal of time and energy. Whatever conclusion, however, may 

 be arrived at as the result of the measurements, there can be no doubt 

 that the knowledge gained will be worth any trouble entailed in 

 obtaining it. 



On another page will be found Mr. Butler's account of his observa- 

 tions on the breeding of the soles in the Aquarium. As Mr. Butler 

 points out, this is the first occasion since the A(|uarium was opened 

 that these fish have been known to produce fertilised eggs, and is 

 probably the first time that such eggs have been obtained from speci- 

 mens of this fish kept in confinement. 



Considerable progress has been made in arranging certain groups for 

 the type museum by the three gentlemen, Messrs. Garstang, T. H. 

 Taylor and T. V. Hodgson, who have undertaken this work. There 

 still remains much to be done, and it is hoped that other naturalists 

 will be willing to take advantage of the arrangements made for helping 

 with other groups. 



E. J. Allen. 



August, 1895. 



