MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 51 



of some common and typical animal, for the use of students 

 in University laboratories and biological stations. This series 

 was commenced with a Memoir on " Ascidia," published in 

 October, 1899, and has been continued for the last twenty 

 years, twenty-three of such Memoirs having now appeared. 



The following year, 1899, is noteworthy as the date of 

 the Stockholm Conference for the purpose of initiating an 

 International Exploration of the North Sea and neighbouring 

 waters, in the interests of the Fishing industries. The project 

 was advanced a stage further by the succeeding Conference at 

 Copenhagen in 1900, and subsequently became an established 

 convention between nine or ten of the Governments of North- 

 west Europe, and has resulted in the publication of a very 

 large quantity of work of a biological and oceanographic nature. 

 In the arrangements put forward at both these original 

 Conferences, and also in further declarations issued since, the 

 programme of work omits any reference to the Irish Sea and 

 the greater part of the West Coast of Scotland, which left 

 us at any rate a free hand to continue the investigation of our 

 own district in our own manner.* As a critic in "Nature" 

 (November 16th, 1899) said at the time : — " With an elaborate 

 organisation, such as that suggested by the Conference, there 

 is a danger that the work of the biological stations would 

 degenerate into the mere taking and recording of routine 

 observations, whilst original work and the development of 

 new methods of research, which are in reality of far greater 

 importance, would receive a check. Good men would certainly 

 not be attracted to work which consisted merely in recording 

 observations taken according to a stereotyped plan dictated 



* This independent investigation of the Irish Sea was subsequently arranged 

 and carried out in collaboration with the Lancashire and Western Sea 

 Fisheries Committee and the Irish Fisheries Department, and periodio 

 hydrographical cruises were made by the Lancashire Sea fisheries steamer 

 for several years up to September, 1U14. It is hoped that tins work at sea 

 will soon be resumed. 



