45 
SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT of the LIVERPOOL 
MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE, and their 
BIOLOGICAL STATION at PORT ERIN. 
By W. A. Herpman, D.Sc., F.R.S. 
DERBY PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL 5 
CHAIRMAN OF THE LIVERPOOL MARINE BIOLOGY COMMITTEE, 
AND DIRECTOR OF THE PORT ERIN STATION. 
[Read 9th December, 1892.] 
INTRODUCTION. 
As this, although a continuation of the series of Annual 
Reports dealing largely with the Biological Station on 
Puffin Island, is also in a sense the opening of a new 
record, 1t may help some of those whose sympathy we 
wish to enlist in the new locality where we have come to 
work if a brief explanation is given of the object of the 
Liverpool Marine Biology Committee and of the reason 
why they have a Station at the Isle of Man. 
Biology is the science of living things, and deals with 
all plants and all animals including man. Used in its 
proper wide sense Biology includes not only Botany and 
Zoology, or Natural History, but also Embryology, 
Paleontology, Anatomy, Physiology and Anthropology. 
Marine Biology deals with the development, life-history, 
structure, actions, and relationships of the animals and 
plants which live in the sea, and also with any general 
theoretical questions upon which these animals and plants 
throw any light. 
Some of the reasons why marine biology is a favourite 
subject of investigation, and is so often spoken of apart 
from other biological studies, are, that animals are much 
more numerous and more varied in the sea, and especially 
round the coasts, than upon land or in fresh waters, and 
represent a larger number of the more important groups ; 
