FEB Z9 1898 



NOTE ON A NKW BHITISU ECHIUIiOID OEPHYHEAN. 3G7 



Note on a New British Echiuroid Gephyrean, 

 with Remarks on the Genera Thalassema 

 and Hamingia. 



By 



^^. A. Ilordinnii, D.Sc, F.R.S., 



Professor of Natural History in University College, Liverpool. 



With Plates 27 and 28. 



On the dredging expeditions of the Liverpool Marine Biology 

 Committee we endeavour as much as possible to try new 

 methods of collecting, or to modify old methods, with the 

 object of securing animals whose special habitat renders them 

 difficult of capture. With this end in view, when dredging 

 last Easter (April, 1896) in the deep depression that runs 

 down between the Isle of Man and Ireland, it occurred to me 

 to try a haul of the large fish-trawl (50-foot beam) which we 

 had on board, but to steam very much more slowly than is 

 customary when trawling, so as to allow the foot-rope to dig 

 deeply into the stiff blue mud which I knew we were on. We 

 went dead slow with plenty of the heavy steel warp out, the 

 result being — as the event proved — that a good deal of the 

 warp lay on the bottom, and so made the pull on the trawl 

 practically a horizontal one. As a consequence of this we 

 must have sliced off the top six inches to a foot, possibly, of 

 the bottom deposit as we went along. When the trawl came 

 up it was half full of the blue mud, and we found it impossible 

 to get the net on board. After steaming round for a little a 

 good deal of the mud was washed out through the meshes, 



VOL. 40, PART 3. NEW 8ER. C C 



