1.^2 



NATURE 



[June 5, 1890 



take the task of writing a text-book on this subject, and 

 on the success with which he has accomplished it. The 

 book ought to give a great impulse to the study of this 

 theory, and to enlist many friends in its service. 



O. Henrici. 



THE SIXTH SCIENTIFIC CRUISE OF THE 

 STEAMER " HY^NA " WITH THE LIVER- 

 POOL MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE. 



THE Liverpool Salvage Association having kindly 

 placed their s.s. Hycena once more at the disposal 

 of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, a four-days' 

 dredging cruise was arranged and successfully carried 

 out at Whitsuntide. The old gunboat left the Mersey 

 on Friday, May 23, and steamed to the Menai Straits. 

 Some of the party spent the afternoon and evening 

 collecting on the shore at Puffin Island, off which the 

 HycEtia was anchored for the night. On the following 

 morning, after a few hauls of the dredge near Puffin 

 Island, and between Penmon Point and Beaumaris, and 

 again off Port Dinorwic, the steamer went through the 

 straits to Carnarvon Bay, and commenced working along 

 the southern coast of Anglesey. 



The dredges and various kinds of tow-nets, surface and 

 bottom, were used at intervals. Mr. W. E. Hoyle's deep- 

 water closing net, which has now been modified so that 

 its movements of opening and closing are effected by the 

 passage of an electric current, was experimented with 

 frequently during the cruise — not so much with the object 

 of collecting specimens, as for the purpose of detecting 

 and remedying any possible defects in the construction, 

 and of guarding against conditions which might interfere 

 with the proper action of the apparatus. On the whole 

 the net worked satisfactorily, the causes of occasional 

 failures were discovered, and when the improved form of 

 frame used by the Germans has been adopted, the 

 apparatus will no doubt be a most useful addition to the 

 implements of the marine biologist. 



The Hycena anchored for the night in a small rocky bay, 

 Porth Dafarth, on the south side of Holyhead Island, 

 Anglesey, and half the party of over twenty biologists were 

 landed to sleep on shore. After dark those who remained 

 on board commenced tow-netting by electric light, and re- 

 peated with some modifications the experiments which 

 had been made during the last two cruises of the Hycena 

 at the Isle of Man (Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 130, and 

 vol. xl. p. 47) in 1888 and 1889. The large arc lamp was 

 hoisted over the side of the ship so as to throw a strong 

 glare on the water, and Edison-Swan incandescent lamps 

 were sent down to the bottom in tow-nets which were 

 hauled up at intervals. Comparatively few Cumacea, 

 Amphipoda, and Schizopoda were obtained this time, but 

 shrimps and young fishes were— for the first time in our 

 experience— attracted by the light to the surface, and 

 some of them were caught and preserved. One of the 

 ship's boats was kept in the area illuminated by the arc 

 lamp, and by leaning over her side the small objects in the 

 surface-layer of water could be most distinctly seen, and 

 particular animals picked out and captured with a hand- 

 net as they darted about in the neighbourhood of the light. 



Two of the party got up at 3 a.m., and took a surface 

 tow-netting about dawn, which was afterwards found to 

 contain a much greater number of Copepoda, and more 

 variety, than any of the other tow-nettings, either day or 

 electric light, surface or bottom. Amongst other interest- 

 ing things it contained a large number of Peltidiuni 

 depresstim, which had not been taken at all during the 

 day, and only in very small numbers with the electric light 

 bottom net. This same species has recently been taken 

 in quantity at Puffin Island by leaving a tow-net out all 

 night attached to a buoy. It is usually found sticking on 



NO, 1075, VOL. 42"! 



Laininaria in the day-time, but evidently comes to the 

 surface in abundance late at night or early in the morning. 



The following day was spent in steaming slowly about off 

 the southern coast of Anglesey, dredging and tow-netting 

 at frequent intervals. The surface life was found to be 

 very poor — comparatively few Copepoda and almost no 

 representatives of other free-swimming groups being 

 obtained ; but Mr. Thompson noticed the relative abund- 

 ance in all the tow-nettings, both surface and bottom, 

 during the day, and also with the electric light, and at 

 dawn, of unusually large specimens of Dias longiremis, 

 and also the prevalence of the somewhat uncommon 

 Isias clavipes in all the surface gatherings, though none 

 were taken in the bottom ones. 



The dredging results were fairly good : some very 

 fine sponges were obtained, and Ascidians were plen- 

 tiful. One patch of rich ground was discovered near 

 Rhoscolyn Beacon, where Comatiila was brought up in 

 abundance along with various Tunicata, Holothurians, 

 Nudibranchs, Zoophytes, Polyzoa, and large sponges. 

 After dark, in Porth Dafarth, the electric lights were 

 again used for a couple of hours. This time the large 

 arc lamp was taken to the stern and suspended close to 

 the surface of the water, but as it was not working steadily 

 one of the incandescent submarine lamps was lowered 

 over the side and kept a few inches under water, and this 

 proved most effective in attracting animals to a stationary 

 tow-net or a hand-net beside it. On the fourth day the 

 Hycena returned through the Menai Straits to Liverpool. 

 As usual the specimens collected have been distributed 

 to specialists, and the detailed reports upon the various 

 groups will appear in the next volume of the " Fauna 

 of the Liverpool District." W. A. Herdman. 



W. S. DALLAS. 



THE death of this genial and accomplished man will 

 awaken feelings of no ordinary regret, not only 

 among geologists, but among naturalists all over the 

 country. For two-and-twenty years his tall, handsome 

 person has been the most familiar figure at the rooms of 

 the Geological Society in Burlington House. Always at 

 his post, with a pleasant smile of welcome, ever ready 

 with assistance from his large treasures of knowledge and 

 experience, knowing more intimately than anyone else the 

 affairs and traditions of the Society, proud of its history 

 and keenly sensitive for its scientific reputation, he had 

 come to be looked upon as a kind of ge7tius loci — the 

 living embodiment of the Society's aims and work. 



Of those who knew Mr. Dallas only in his later years, 

 and saw his whole-hearted devotion to the geological 

 labours intrusted to him, probably few were aware that 

 he was not always a geologist. He began life with 

 zoological inquiries, and devoted his attention more 

 especially to insects. His early papers appeared in the 

 Transactions of the Entomological Society, but he pre- 

 pared also a Catalogue of the Hemipterous Insects in 

 the British Museum, which was published as far back as 

 the years 1851-52. Yet he did not confine himself to one 

 branch of zoology ; on the contrary, his reading and 

 knowledge ranged over a wide domain in natural history. 

 In the year 1856 he published his " Natural History of 

 the Animal Kingdom," by far the best work of the kind 

 in its day, which rendered important service to biology, in 

 making the study of living forms more attractive, and in 

 providing for that study a much more accurate ground- 

 work than had ever before been obtainable. The value 

 of his labours was recognized not long afterwards by his 

 being appointed Curator of the Yorkshire Philosophical 

 Society's Museum at York— an office which he held for 

 ten years, until in 1868 he obtained the post which he 

 held up to the last— that of Assistant Secretary, Librarian, 

 and Curator to the Geological Society of London. 



