Sr 



ROUGH NOTES ON MARINE ZOOLOGY IN THE 



SCARBOROUGH DISTRICT 

 DURING THE LAST TWO YEARS. 



OX LEY GRABHAM, M.A., M. B.O.I 



To the naturalist who turns his steps towards the far stretching paths 

 of Marine Zoology, a vast field for research lies open. We live in 

 the age of specialists, and knowledge has increased, so that no one 

 person can be well versed in all the 'ologies' under the sun; t< 

 those who, like myself, pay greater and closer attention to other 

 branches of natural history, but who still take more than a passing 

 interest in the inhabitants of the loud-sounding main, these rough 

 notes may be of some little interest. The man who relies on 

 seeking his specimens from the shore alone, will find that after 

 a time he arrives at a point thus far and no further, and although 

 occasionally, after heavy storms, when the deeper waters have been 

 disturbed, the inhabitants thereof are cast up on the beach, they are 

 comparatively few and far between, and he must look round for 

 other methods if he wishes to gain knowledge and specimens. 

 There are two ways of doing this, either by taking occasional trips 

 on board the trawlers, or by getting hold of some intelligent fisherman 

 to bring in any curiosities that may be dredged up. But it is an 

 extraordinary thing that even the magic words • I promise to pay, etc. 

 seem very often to have lost their sway with these men; they 

 consider everything that is uneatable or that will not letch a read} 

 price in the market as so much rubbish ; and many a rare and 

 unique specimen, which would rejoice the heart of the Marin* 

 Zoologist, is ruthlessly hove overboard and lost for ever. A bibulous 



old mariner who occasionally brought me 'them rubbage/ as he 

 termed his treasures, once deposited at my door a huge bucket 

 crammed full of nothing but three or four hundred specimens of the 

 common species of Pecten ; there was positively nothing else. It 

 was useless to argue with him ; he always brought me the common* t 

 things, and with no stinted hand, but things that i wanted wen 

 conspicuous by their absence, so I gave him up in disgust. I onh 

 found one man capable and willing to bring me decent specimens, 

 and who was intelligent enough to discriminate between common 

 and uncommon. To begin with the lowest in the scale, only 

 two species of leUy-ilsh have come before my notice, the 

 (Equorea or Medusa, and the Cydiffe pilens, the Beroe or Egg 



March 1S96. 



