64 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
In turning over these earlier works of Forbes, we think 
of him as the typical “ field-naturalist ’ of the older days, | 
when it was still possible to take all nature for your province | 
and do useful work in many fields—constantly investigating, | 
constantly observing wherever he went, and throwing welcome | 
light on science by all his observations. 
All Forbes’ later and more famous work in Marine Biology | 
and the relations between Zoology and Geology—work that 
extended from Hebridean and Scandinavian Seas, through | 
the Mediterranean to the far Algean—may be said to have — 
sprung from and been founded on his early work done as a 
lad in the college vacations in his home Manx waters. 
A little to the north of Peel, on the West Coast of Man, 
hes a submarine elevation, the Ballaugh fishmg bank, which 
was the scene of some of Forbes’ earliest explorations—about 
eighty years ago. The path of the pioneer is proverbially 
rough, and no doubt it is easier for us now, when, on occasions, 
we take our students to the Ballaugh Bank for a day’s dredging 
from Port Erm. Forbes, in his day, must have gone in a 
small sail-boat from the shore below his house, or possibly 
in one of the “nobbies” of the Peel fishing fleet, and was 
certainly more dependent upon wind and weather than is 
now the case, when we can steam to the bank from Port Erin 
in an hour or two, and carry on our work there without much 
regard to wind or tide, in any moderate weather. But we 
find, in going over Forbes’ records from Ballaugh, that his 
work was wonderfully detailed and accurate, and there is 
little or nothing to add. He found nearly all there is to find, 
and he marked out the distribution of life upon the various 
depths and parts of the bank with remarkable precision. 
And that, I think, is characteristic of much of his work. That 
he did so much, and did it so well in so short a life, full of 
other duties and cares, must constantly excite the wonder 
and admiration of those who humbly follow in his footsteps. 
