364 KEPOiiT— 1891. 



Your Committee would respectfully solicit their reappointment as 

 before ; and, while engaging to bring the enquiry to a conclnsion with the 

 least possible delay, they find it impossible to pledge themselves to 

 any fixed date for completing the work. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Fj.ower (Chair- 

 rtian), Professor M. Fostek, Professor Rat Lankester, Professor 

 Vines, and Mr. S. F. Hairier (Secretary), appointed for the 

 purpose of arranging for the occupation of a Table at the 

 Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. 



The Committee have followed the precedent of the previous year in not 

 employing the grant of 2>0l. entrusted to them in taking a table for a 

 complete year ; but they have made nse of portions of the grant, from 

 time to time, as the occasion arose. 



They have nominated the following j^ersons to tlie use of a table at 

 Plymouth : — 



Miss Florence Buchanan, for one month (July, 1891). 



Mr. S. J. Hickson, M.A., D.Sc, Fellow of Downing College, Cam- 

 bridge, for one month (from August 26, 1891). 



Mr. A. Willey, for six weeks (from August 3, 1891). 



No payment is made for one of these months, while the remaining 

 period is paid for at the rate of hi. per month. The Committee have 

 therefore to report that they have only spent 12?. lOs., leaving an unused 

 balance of V7l. \0s. 



The Committee are obviously unable to give any detailed information 

 with regard to the results of their employment of the grant. Miss 

 Buchanan is ah'eady working at Plymouth, and is engaged in the sys- 

 tematic study of the species of Polycha3ta occurring at Plymouth, with 

 a view to preparing a list of the Polycha3t fauna of that neighbourhood ; 

 she is also making observations on the regeneration of lost parts in Nereis 

 and in Nephthys, and on the variation of Nereis diveri^icoJor. Mr. Hick- 

 son proposes to investigate the development of Alcyoninm ; and, if time 

 permits, to study certain points in its physiology and minute anatomy. 

 Mr. Willey expresses his intention of investigating the group of the 

 Tunicata. 



The Committee believe that the nominations which they have made 

 are a sufficient evidence of the utility of the grant in assisting well- 

 qualified persons who arc anxious to work at the Plymouth Laboratory ; 

 and they ask the Association to re-appoint them, and to place at their 

 disposal 171. 10s., being the unused balance of the grant made to them 

 at the Leeds Meeting, 



Experience has shown that applications for nomination are likely to 

 be made for the summer months only, as in the two preceding years. 

 The Committee wish to point out that, if this is the case, they do not 

 expect to be able to furnish at the ensuing meeting of the Association a 

 detailed Report on the investigations undertaken with the assistance of 

 the new grant ; but they hope to be in a position, if re-appointed, to give 

 a more complete account, in their next Report, of the results of the in- 

 vestigations which ai'e in progress, or which are about to be made with 

 the assistance of the grant which has just expired. 



