ON THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE CAMEROON MOUNTAINS. 77 



Pohjpodium lineare, Thunb. 

 Marattia fraxinea, Sm. 

 Lycopodium fertile, Baker. 



„ dacrydioides, Baker. 



Selaginella Vogelii, Spring. 

 JJsnea harhata, f . florida, Fr. 

 Stereocaulon, sp. probably ramulosum, Ach. 

 Neckera pennata, Hedw. 

 Bryum Commersonii, Brid. 

 Meteoriicm imbricatum (Schw.). 

 Leptodontium pungens, Mitt. 

 Plagiochila dichotoma, Nees. 

 Metzgeria tnynapoda, Lindbg. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Ray Lankester, 

 Mr. P. L. Sclater, Professor M. Foster, Mr. A. Sedgwick, 

 Professor A. M. Marshall, Professor A. C. Haddon, Professor 

 MosELET, and Mr. Percy Sladen {Secretary), appointed for the 

 purpose of arranging for the occxipatioii, of a Table at the 

 Zoological Station at Naples. 



Your Committee report that the table at their disposal has been fullv 

 occupied during the past year, and they beg to direct attention to the 

 subjoined reports of the naturalists to whom it has been granted as evi- 

 dence of satisfactory work done, which probably could not have been 

 undertaken elsewhere with equal success. 



The general efficiency and good organisation of the Zoological Station 

 at Naples is too well known to need recapitulation. The institution con- 

 tinues in its course of steady development, and its sphere of action will 

 shortly be still further extended by the opening of the physiological 

 laboratory. Tlie new building, which is now rapidly approaching com- 

 pletion, is expected to be in working order before the close of the year. 

 This addition will probably greatly increase the number of workers at the 

 Station, in consequence of the exceptional facilities that physiological 

 students will there find for carrying out a systematic course of experiments. 



It may be of general interest to state that the Zoological Station has 

 recently carried out, at the instigation of the Italian Ministry of Agri- 

 culture and Commerce, a number of investigations of a practical bearing 

 on the fishery industry. One of the most important in a commercial 

 point of view has reference to the question of trawl-fishing. Trawl- 

 fishing, as is well known, has been alleged to be hurtful to the propaga- 

 tion of food-fishes, by destroying the eggs, which are deposited on the 

 sea-bottom. This question has been made the subject of careful research 

 by the Station ; and the results arrived at may be briefly summarised in 

 the statement that positive evidence has been procured that thirty-five 

 species of food-fishes, which include those most important in a commei'- 

 cial point of view, produce pelagic or floating eggs ; and that consequently 

 the supposed injurious efiect of trawl-fishing is, in the case of these forms, 

 proved to be an illusion ; and that legislative restriction of trawl-fishing, 

 based on these reasons, can safely be abandoned. The Italian Ministry 



