Director’s Report.—No. II. 
Some explanation is due to the members of the Association for 
the delay in the publication of the Journal, which in the ordinary 
course would have appeared in November, 1893. It is proposed for 
the future to issue the half-yearly parts in July and January, and 
accordingly the publication of the present number was deferred from 
November of last year to January, 1894. Unforeseen circumstances 
affecting myself have caused a further postponement, but the 
customary punctuality in the appearance of the Journal will be 
observed in the future. 
One of the main objects of the Laboratory has been fulfilled since 
my last report (May, 1898) by the constant presence of zoologists in 
addition to the two naturalists on the staff. Their names are given 
below. 
The field for investigation in marine botany and in the physiology 
of marine animals is at least as wide as that in marine zoology, yet 
neither a botanist nor a physiologist has made use of the resources 
of this Laboratory, where their work could be carried on with the 
minimum of trouble and inconvenience. A most interesting and 
important botanical problem, to mention one only which could well 
be studied at Plymouth, would be the nutrition and excretion of 
marine alge, and the manner in which they affect the sea water 
they live in, under varying physical and chemical conditions. The 
physiology of marine animals, as far as it is known, has largely been 
the study of zoologists, who have made occasional observations on 
the living animals observed, and it is much to be desired that 
specially trained physiologists should apply modern methods to 
research on marine Invertebrata. By acquiring a quantity of well- 
established data for comparison with Vertebrates, the science would 
be made broader in its scope, and some questions of fundamental 
importance could be brought nearer to solution by the application 
of the methods of comparison. A subject which, from work already 
done, promises important results is the action of the various coloured 
and colourless circulatory fluids in the respiration of marine animals. 
There are a number of highly interesting questions connected with 
