MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 53 



many of which are attached one, two, or three specimens 

 of the little red anemone, Sagartia herdmani, Haddon. 

 In its deeper parts, up to 80 fathoms, are found Calocaris 

 macandrece, Hyalincecia tubicola, a small Lumbriconereis , 

 Panthalis oerstedi, Lipobranchius jeffreysii, Brissopsis 

 lyrifera, Amphiura chiajii, and Isocardia cor. Numbers 

 of large sausage-like muddy tubes, formed of stratified 

 layers of interlacing threads of mucus in which the mud 

 particles are closely entangled, are brought up in the 

 dredge. These we have now proved to be the tubes of 

 Panthalis oerstedi, and the living annelid has several 

 times been found in the tubes, but most of those we 

 dredge up are empty, and the tubes are certainly far more 

 numerous than the worms. Possibly the explanation is 

 that the Panthalis forms a tube as it lies in the mud, and 

 then when it moves away leaves its tube behind it (one 

 can scarcely imagine the animal dragging such a tube 

 through this tenaceous deposit), and after a time forms 

 another in a new situation.* 



These are the leading conclusions we have come to so 

 far in regard to the distribution of sub marine deposits in 

 our area. Two further questions now present themselves ; 

 first, the biological one — the effect upon the fauna ; and 

 secondly, the geological one — the origin of the deposits. 

 In regard to the importance of the nature of the bottom 

 to the animals living upon it there can be no doubt. 

 Probably the nature of the deposit is the most important 

 of the various factors that determine the distribution of 



*This suggested explanation was written in June, and was read in August 

 before Section D of the Brit. Assoc, at Oxford. The work of Mr. Watson, at 

 Port Erin at the end of August lias pretty well established its correctness, as 

 he watched a Panthalis, in a tank, desert its old tube and form a new one 

 h-om mucus threads and mud particles (sec p. til). It tnusl be remembered 

 also that some of the empty tubes doubtless belong to dead worms. 



