MARTNE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 63 



Lobster culture was started in the Hatchery in the 

 summer of 1907. Some thousands of larvae were hatched and 

 set free in their first and second stages and about 80 were reared 

 to the lobsterling stage. This work has been continued in each 

 successive year up to the present, and many experiments have 

 been made by the Curator and his assistant as to the best 

 methods of keeping the adult " berried " lobsters, and of 

 rearing and feeding the larvse, which will be found recorded in 

 the various Annual Reports. 



Mr. F. H. Gravely from the University of Manchester 

 made notable faunistic investigations during the summer 

 of 1907 and added many rare and interesting forms to our 

 list, including the Tornaria larva of Balanoglossus which we 

 have never succeeded in finding in the adult condition. Mr. 

 Gravely eventually contributed a useful Memoir on " Polychaet 

 Larvse " to our series. 



In the following Report, for 1908, we published a full 

 description of the hatchery arrangements, the circulation of 

 the water, the mechanism of the hatching-boxes by means of 

 which they are alternately raised and then depressed through 

 a few inches so as to keep their contained eggs in constant 

 motion, the method of filtering the water and other details. 

 From this time onwards the work in the Hatchery went on 

 steadily year by year, plaice being dealt with during the 

 spring, February to May, and lobster larvse being reared 

 during the summer, July to September. The numbers of 

 millions of plaice and of thousands of young lobsters have 

 varied from year to year (up to about eight million plaice and 

 five thousand lobsters), and the whole of the work must still 

 be regarded as experimental, as an attempt to find out what 

 are the best conditions under which such operations can be 

 carried on, and what measure of success it can be reasonably 

 hoped to attain. On one point, however, there can be no 

 doubt, and that is that the young fish hatched under artificial 



