40 SPOLIA ZBYLANICA. 



The circumstances which led Professor Herdman and Mr. 

 Hornell to fix upon Galle as the site for a Biological Station are 

 described by Professor Herdman in his Preliminary Report on the 

 Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon addressed to His Excellency the Lieu- 

 tenant-Governor on 1st July, 1902. 



" Galle," writes Professor Herdman, " seemed to us, after a careful 

 investigation lasting over five days, to be without doubt the most 

 suitable point on the coast of Ceylon for the establishment of a 

 Marine Laboratory and the prosecution of observations and experi- 

 ments on living oysters. Galle has a fringing coral reef round its 

 western shore, inside which is in places a shallow lagoon with 

 a hard bottom, formed partly of living animals and partly of dead 

 coral fragments, making a deposit very like that on some of the 

 ' Paars ' at Mannar. At the opposite or south-eastern part of the 

 bay, inside Watering Point, there is also some hard ground formed 

 in part of coral, and at this spot we actually found the pearl oyster 

 living." 



The " Sixteenth Annual Report of the Liverpool Marine Biology 

 Committee," edited by Professor Herdman (Liverpool, 1902, 70 pp.), 

 contains an illustrated account of the new Biological Station at 

 Port Erin, Isle of Man. The Liverpool Marine Biology Com- 

 mittee is a Committee consisting of local naturalists from Liverpool 

 and neighbouring towns ; it was formed in 1885 at a meeting 

 summoned for the purpose by Professor Herdman. 



In 1887 a small biological station was set up on Puffin Island 

 off the north coast of Anglesey. This was transferred in 1892 to 

 Port Erin Bay on the southern coast of the Isle of Man. At this 

 place a three-roomed Biological Station was built and formally 

 opened for work by Sir Spencer Walpole, the Governor of the 

 Island. In 1893 an Aquarium was added to the establishment, and 

 later on sea-fish hatching was undertaken. In 1898 an alliance 

 was formed between a Committee appointed by the Manx Govern- 

 ment and the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, with the 

 result that three years later a much larger building representing a 

 combined Biological Station, Aquarium, and Fish Hatchery was 

 erected. Of the three Departments, the Laboratory block is con- 

 trolled by the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, the Hatchery 

 block by the Manx Committee, and the Aquarium in the centre 

 is managed as a joint concern. 



With regard to Ceylon it may be added that Professor Herdman 

 has, in a ])rivate letter, called attention to the advantages likely to 

 result from co-operation between the Colombo Museum and the 

 Galle Laboratory in the event of the latter being made permanent. 



