46 transactions liverpool biological society. 



The Microscopic Life of the Beach. 



An immense amount of work remains to be done in 

 examining with the microscope the various deposits, such 

 as sand and mud, found between tide-marks on our 

 shores — not once for all, but periodically; so as to 

 determine the nature of the minute animals and plants, 

 their relative abundance and their variations in quantity. 

 Some of these lowly organisms, although individually 

 insignificant, may exist in such quantities as to discolour 

 the sands or the sea-water, and even give rise to plagues 

 amongst shell-fish and other more valuable animals. 

 Invasions of this kind are known to have appeared in 

 America and in Australia, and a minute animal, hitherto 

 unnoticed in British seas, has been found repeatedly on 

 the tidal sands at Port Erin this year in considerable 

 quantity. I gave a preliminary account of this 

 occurrence to the Linnean Society of London on June 1st, 

 and described the later manifestations at the Portsmouth 

 meeting of the British Association in September. As 

 there have been some further changes since, I shall now 

 summarise the whole visitation, quoting some parts from 

 what was published by the Linnean Society in their 

 Journal,* and using, by kind permission of the Society, 

 the blocks which were prepared for that publication. The 

 matter began with the following observation : — 



" In going to and fro between the village of Port 

 Erin and the Biological Station, during the recent Easter 

 vacation, those of us who were constantly at work had 

 occasion to take a short cut across the sandy beach at 

 least twice and sometimes six times in the day. One 

 gets into the habit, in these traverses, of looking closely 

 at the beach when the tide is out, on the chance of seeing 

 something of interest cast up. On April Tth, I noticed a 



*Journ. Linn. Soc, Zool., XXXII, No. 212, p. 71. 



