MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 43 



silk to a tube containing his special preservative fluid formed 

 of spirit, glycerine and water in certain proportions. 



" When the dredge is brought up it is emptied on deck, 

 and after a note of the general character of the deposit and 

 assemblage of animals has been taken, any specially large or 

 rare specimens are picked out and transferred to buckets or 

 jars of sea-water, or to store-bottles of spirit. Then the heap 

 is spread out so as to form a layer not more than one or two 

 inches in depth, and one or two members of the Committee 

 (Herdman and another, Walker or Leicester) now settle down 

 beside it to pass the entire mass in review inch by inch, working 

 it across a small space of bare deck and turning over every 

 shell, stone and specimen with an iron spoon, so as to ensure 

 that nothing escapes observation and due record in the note- 

 book. In the meantime the contents of the bottom tow-net 

 have been dealt with by Mr. Thompson, and the apparatus 

 has been lowered for a second haul, or the vessel is steaming 

 on to a new locality. Then a fair sample of the deposit is selected 

 for preservation (for the Geological Survey) in a small canvas 

 bag (10 by 5 inches), care being taken to include some of the 

 characteristic bottom animals — shells, ophiuroids, polyzoa, etc. 

 After this sample has been removed, and special animals 

 required have been picked out and put into store-bottles, the 

 whole of the remainder of the haul is passed gradually through 

 our set of three sieves (meshes f inch, J inch, and I inch respec- 

 tively), which work up and down in a tall iron cylinder filled 

 with sea- water. The sieves are disconnected and examined 

 at intervals, and in this way many of the smaller animals of 

 all groups are detected and picked out. Finally, the water in 

 which the sieves have been plunging is strained by Mr. 

 Thompson through his fine silk net, and in this way many of 

 the rarer bottom Copepoda are obtained, while the finer sand)' 

 and muddy deposits retained by the finest sieve or in the 

 bottom of the cylinder are packed in canvas bags by Mr. 



