24 



THE 



MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT POET ERIN, 



BEING THE 



TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT 



OP THE 



LIVERPOOL MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE. 



As I have been able to devote a good deal of time to the 

 affairs of the Biological Station this year, I now revert 

 to the former plan of the Report in which Mr. Chadwick's 

 contribution appears under the heading " Curator's 

 Report " ; but I am, as usual, indebted to him, or to his 

 weekly reports for much of the information given under 

 " The Station Record " and " The Aquarium." 



Workers at our Biological Station have frequently 

 had occasion in the past to deplore the absence of a small 

 dredging steamer from the equipment for research at Port 

 Erin. As I proposed to spend the greater part of the 

 summer vacation in work at the Station this year, it 

 seemed a favourable opportunity to test the advantages 

 of having a boat suitable for dredging outside the bay. 

 The steam-yacht " Madge " was chartered privately for 

 two months, and was kept very fully employed during 

 most of the time. I think it may be said that the 

 experiment was a thorough success, not only from the 

 point of view of my own special work, but also as an 

 advantage to all others working at the Station. My main 

 object in the work from the steamer was to test the 

 catching power of various surface and deep-water silk nets 

 with the view of estimating the value of the " samples " 

 of the microscopic life of the sea obtained by such means, 

 and I shall reprint as an appendix to this Report a paper 

 giving the details of our observations which I had occasion 



