MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. oo 
on some piece of biological research, more or less in continuation 
of some line of work opened up by Forbes, or an investigation 
which has grown out of such work. 
The Edward Forbes Exhibitioner for the year 1918 is 
CATHERINE Mayne, B.Sc., who spent a couple of weeks at 
Port Erin in the Spring, working at some points in connection 
with the density of distribution of the commonest plants 
and animals on the sea-shore. 
Miss Mayne reports as follows on her work at Port Erin :— 
“As Edward Forbes Exhibitioner for this year I spent 
two weeks from April 13th to 29th collecting statistics relating 
to the density of the flora and fauna on the shores round 
Port Erm. My attention was devoted mainly to the animals 
Balanus and Patella, and the plants Fucus and Laminaria, 
but I noted also Spirorbis and Actima. 
“My object was to gain some idea of the possible, not 
the average, density of the population, and I therefore selected 
the most thickly covered parts of the shore for my purpose. 
The apparatus consisted of a wooden frame such as fishermen 
use for their lines, one-foot square, a measure, graded from 
7s of an inch upwards, and a blue-lead pencil. 
“The barnacles (Balanus balanoides) are most abundant 
on the rocks between quarter-tide and full-tide. They grow 
very thickly on the big boulders and flat-topped rocks at 
Fleshwick, Spaldrick, and the Miners’ Bay (Bradda), and 
below the swimming-baths and the old Biological Station 
in Port Erin Bay—in all cases on the metamorphic ‘ Manx 
Slates.’ On the limestone shore at Port St. Mary patches of 
small barnacles are to be found, but these are sparsely scattered 
between comparatively large areas of Hnteromorpha, and 
the two never seem to inhabit the same piece of rock. 
“The method of observation consisted in laying the 
frame upon as flat a piece of rock as [ could find, and counting 
all within by hundreds, ticking them off with the blue pencil 
