MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 19 
, “to young and rising Naturalists, who will be able to view 
both sides of the question with impartiality ’’* 2 
When reading Forbes’ views on specific and generic 
centres of distribution, or his work in tracing the migrations 
of species both in space and time, or the description of his 
great map of “ homoiozoic belts,’ one feels that surely he 
was not far from a belief in the mutability and community 
of descent of organic forms, and that had he lived he must 
have readily seen that the Darwinian theory gave a reasonable 
explanation of the great series of facts in distribution which 
his industry had collected and his genius had marshalled. 
These, taken along with his unrivalled palaeontological know- 
ledge, are the grounds for hopmg that Forbes would have 
been found with Huxley in the Darwinian camp. 
In the entrance hall of the Port Erm Biological Station, 
the most conspicuous object is the large white bustt of Edward 
Forbes, whose clear-cut intellectual features and genial expres- 
sion at once arrest the eye, and appear to preside over the 
activities and destiny of the institution. And what better 
position could there be for this finely-formed reminder of 
the Manx pioneer of science than in this workshop of Manx 
marine biology, devoted to the continuation and extension 
of Forbes’ work in his native land? For here, all researchers 
who work in the laboratory, everyone of the hundreds of 
senior students who enter on a course of study at Port Erin, 
and all who care of the many thousands of visitors who frequent 
the Aquarium, recognise or learn who Professor Edward 
Forbes was, and what he did. His works are in our library 
at the Biological Station, the starfishes and molluscs he 
described so well with pen and pencil are in the sea before 
our doors, his home at Ballaugh is almost in sight. In all 
* Origin of Species, 6th Edition, p- 423. 
+ Presented to the Institution by Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, of Ramsey. 
