Surface Dredging on the Bee. 
BY DR. H. STOLTERFOTH, M.A. 
Abstract of Paper read on 16th January, 1879. 
l HAVE worked during the past year with a view to 
ascertaining what are the special forms of Microscopic life 
found on the surface of the Estuary of the Dee. My method 
of obtaining these organisms is as follows :— 
As the mass of water is greatly in excess of the minute forms 
to be collected, the object must be to concentrate them, and 
for this purpose the simplest form of dredge is a hoop about a 
foot in diameter with a canvass bag attached. This is dragged 
after the boat, and when taken in must be turned inside out 
and washed in a wide-mouth jar until all that clings to the 
canvass be removed ; this must settle down, and then be stored 
away in small bottles to be taken home and examined at leisure. 
The forms, however, that are obtained are so very minute, that 
I had an idea that many of them must escape, even through a 
canvass bag; I therefore devised a glass bottle to be tied to the 
end of the bag, and as it was desirable that the water should be 
constantly changed, I introduced a funnel and a syphon, which 
answers the purpose for which it was intended, and gives the 
small bodies that enter the bottle time to settle down. Both 
these forms of dredge I have used during the past summer on 
the Dee. 
On June the 12th, 1878, I dredged with some of the Liver- 
pool Field Club off Hilbre Island. The sun fortunately came 
out to tempt the animalcules to the surface, and I got a good 
supply of a brown yellowish sort of floculent matter; this I put 
in bottles to be examined under the microscope at home. As 
long as your collection is fresh, the greatest interest is the 
study of the living forms, but as with such delicate organisms 
(many of them injured by the mere collecting) this pleasure 
cannot last for long, it is well to know some means of preserving 
them. One plan is to add a little Carbolic acid directly to the 
sea-water; the bottle will then keep without any disagreeable 
smell for months. My plan, however, is generally to wash in 
fresh water until all trace of salt is gone. This I do by turning 
