{Proceedings Belfast Naturalists' Field Club —Appendix 1884-1885). 



RECENT OSTRACODA OF BELFAST LOUGH. 



By SAMUEL M. MALCOMSON, M.D. 



^S very few Ostracoda have been recorded from the North of Ireland, and 

 as no systematic list of the species inhabiting Belfast Lough and its 

 neighbourhood has ever been made out, I determined some years ago to 

 examine all the material containing them which I could obtain, with a view to 

 supplying this deficiency. 



When I mentioned my project to Mr. Joseph Wright, F.G.S., he very 

 kindly offered to place at my disposal all the material dredged by himself and 

 Mr. Wm. Swanston, F.G.S., from the examination of which he had compiled 

 the extensive list of Foraminifera published in an appendix to the proceedings 

 of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club for 1876-77. To these valuable dredg- 

 ings I have added one gathering of my own, consisting of shore sand from 

 Rockport, County Down, and also the dredgings taken at the Field Club excur- 

 sion in the steam tug " Protector," in 1885. 



Want of time has prevented the examination of Mr. Wright's entire series 

 of dredgings, but those already done seem to give a fairly representative list of 

 the Belfast Lough species, and as Strangford Lough has not yet been systema- 

 tically dredged, I have considered it better not to incorporate the gatherings 

 from that locality in the present list. 



Altogether, gatherings from twenty- one stations have been examined. 

 Eleven of these situated in the Irish Channel, just outside the mouth of Belfast 

 Lough, were all, except three, in moderately deep water (30 to 72 fathoms). 



Five of the stations were in Belfast Lough itself, and all in shallow water 

 (4 to 10 fathoms), while the remaining five stations were situated on the beach, 

 and consisted of shore gatherings, taken from the surface of the sand or from 

 rocky pools between tide marks. 



These gatherings altogether have yielded 100 species of marine Ostracoda, 



