200 



NA TURE 



{June 28, 1888 



and all the animals that have hitherto been placed in the 

 tanks are thriving in a remarkable manner, which is the 

 more surprising as new tanks are generally supposed to 

 be highly injurious to organisms introduced into them at 

 an early a date. It would be too much to expect that 

 tanks which have been so lately put up should be fully 

 stocked within a fortnight, nevertheless they will present 

 to the visitors on Saturday next a sufficiently interesting 

 collection of local marine forms. For the rest the tank- 

 room is a plain room, without any attempt at ornamenta- 

 tion. It is felt that the scientific nature of the institution 

 must be kept in the foreground, and therefore nothing has 

 been done to make the aquarium a place of popular 

 amusement. 



The main laboratory is at present fitted with seven 

 compartments, each to contain a single naturalist, along 

 its north side. When the necessity arises, similar com- 

 partments will be placed along the south side. In the 

 centre of the room is a series of slate and glass tanks 

 supplied with salt water from the circulating pumps. 

 Beneath these a convenient shelf has been arranged, so 

 that naturalists will be able to arrange for themselves 

 any temporary apparatus that they may devise on as 

 small a scale as is desired. All the arrangements for 

 laboratory work will be completed at the end of the week, 

 and the only thing now required is a company of ardent 

 naturalists ready to undertake the work that lies to hand. 



The material for work and for stocking the tanks is 

 obtained from the Sound and the sea outside the break- 

 water by means of the trawl, dredge, and tow-net. In 

 general a small shrimp-trawl is used in preference to a 

 dredge, as it is much wider and equally effective in 

 collecting the animals that live at the bottom. Hitherto 

 the Association has been content to hire fishing-boats for 

 dredging and trawling. Most of the work has been done 

 in a small hook-and-line boat, the Quickstep, of about 6 

 tons burden, and on special occasions the trawler Lola, 

 of 50 tons burden, has been hired. But this method of 

 hiring is too expensive to be continued ; the Association 

 will soon have to purchase boats, and probably will find 

 it necessary to acquire a steam-boat. Without a steam- 

 boat the station is at the mercy of the weather. If it is 

 a dead calm — and calms are frequent in summer along 

 the south coast— no dredging or surface netting can be 

 done, a cruel fate when one knows that the pelagic 

 surface fauna swarms thickest on bright calm days. Or 

 if it is wished to explore a certain region on a certain 

 day, if the winds prove contrary more than half the day 

 is lost in beating up to the station ; in any case one may 

 generally expect to have a contrary wind on either 

 the outward or the homeward journey. Such losses 

 of time and material are most prejudicial to an institu- 

 tion like the Marine Biological Association. A steam- 

 launch has been found necessary at all other marine 

 stations. Dr. Dohrn has two, the Johannes Miiller and 

 the Francis Balfour, at Naples ; and the Granton Station 

 is well provided for by the steam -yacht Medusa. But the 

 funds of the Association have been well nigh exhausted 

 in the building of the Laboratory. If a steam-launch is 

 found requisite, it will be necessary to make another 

 appeal to its friends, which, let it be hoped, will be as 

 heartily responded to as the first appeal for funds for 

 building the Laboratory. 



It was stated in the early part of this article that the 

 Association would begin its active existence on the 30th. 

 It would have been more proper to say its active public 

 existence, for its staff has been active for some time past. 

 Under the guidance of Mr. W. Heape, the late Superin- 

 tendent, a careful though necessarily incomplete explora- 

 tion of the Sound has been made, and numbers of 

 animals have been identified, preserved, and put aside 

 for future reference. Mr. Heape has also drawn up a 

 complete list of the fauna and flora of the Sound, as 

 recorded up to the present date, and a very formidable 



list it is. 1 Botanists will note that there are more 

 than 250 species of marine Algae, recorded from the 

 neighbourhood, and some of them are extremely rare. 

 Zoologists will see that there is an unlimited field in 

 certain groups, particularly in the Crustacea and the 

 Mollusca, but that some of the most interesting forms, 

 the "pets of the laboratory," such as Amphioxus and 

 Balanoglossus, are absent. But to say that they are 

 absent means only that other less familiar forms are 

 present, and that these old favourites have not been 

 recorded. A good authority states that Amphioxus can 

 be found in the immediate neighbourhood, whilst it is 

 confidently expected that both Balanoglossus and Amphi- 

 oxus can be introduced from the Channel Isles, and 

 kept alivj in the tanks. The zoologist need not fear that 

 he will i.e hindered by the poverty of the fauna ; there is 

 materia! enough and to spare. The remarkable Hydroid, 

 Myriothela, occurs at low-tide mark in considerable 

 quantities. The interesting Actinias, Edwardsia and 

 Peachia, are to be found. Appendiculariae and Sagittas are 

 taken in hundreds in the tow-net. Antedon rosaceus is 

 abundant a quarter of a mile from the Laboratory, and mag- 

 nificent specimens of Pinna will attract the interest of the 

 malacologist. 



Such an institution as that at Plymouth challenges 

 comparison with Dr. Dohrn's famous zoological station at 

 Naples. But there is this remarkable difference between 

 them. The Naples Station was founded for purely 

 scientific objects : it does not profess to undertake in- 

 vestigations for the benefit of economic interests. The 

 Marine Biological Association receives an annual grant 

 from the Treasury, on the express understanding that 

 it shall conduct researches upon questions relating to 

 the life- history and habits of food-fishes. It must not 

 be supposed that this work is not scientific because 

 it has a practical object in view. Science is not only 

 the art of thinking correctly, but of observing and 

 recording correctly, and correct observations and records 

 of the life-history of our food-fishes are just what are 

 wanted at the present time. The work of Mr. J. T. 

 Cunningham, Naturalist of the Association, is an admir- 

 able example of scientific method as applied to a practical 

 investigation. Mr. Cunningham has been working for 

 several months at the development of fishes, with the view 

 of obtaining and artificially fertilizing their ova and rear- 

 ing their young in captivity. His results are necessarily 

 incomplete, as he has been working in a half-finished 

 laboratory, without gas or water, and under unfavourable 

 conditions as regards boats and men. But he has suc- 

 ceeded in tracing out the life-history of the " merry sole" 

 {Pleuronectes microcephalus), and has acquainted himself 

 with such important facts concerning the development of 

 the common sole, that he confidently expects to be able to 

 hatch out the young next season, his experiments this year 

 having failed only for want of the proper apparatus. He 

 has also recorded the interesting fact that the herring 

 spawns continuously from January to June in the Channel, 

 and appears to have no definite breeding-season as it has 

 in northern waters ; and has discovered important facts 

 relative to the breeding of the mackerel, conger, and 

 pilchard, which will be made public as soon as his re- 

 searches are complete. He has now stocked one of the 

 large tanks in the aquarium with conger, and hopes in a 

 short time to give a final opinion on the obscure question 

 of the breeding of this fish. Not less interesting than Mr. 

 Cunningham's researches are those of Mr. Weldon on the 

 breeding of the common lobster, and the rock-lobster 

 or craw-fish (Palinurus). Another of the tanks in the 

 aquarium is occupied by the "berried" females of these 

 forms, whose bright colours and active movements are as 

 attractive to the casual spectator as their study is interest- 

 ing to the zoologist and fisherman. So much has been 



1 Mr. Heape's list will be published in the forthcoming number (No. II. 

 of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association. 



