MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. AT 
purposes, while our own Edward Forbes, most closely 
associated by birth, training, and in his after work with 
the Isle of Man, started his pioneer explorations round 
our coasts quite sixty years ago, yet there is still abundance 
of work left—an apparently inexhaustible field lies before 
the skilled observer. In all groups of marine animals 
investigations of all kinds, faunistic, anatomical, embry- 
ological, are urgently needed. Even in the collecting and 
naming of specimens from our most frequented hunting 
erounds much remains to be done. To take a recent 
instance as an example:—a couple of weeks ago when 
Mr. Thompson and I went for a day’s dredging to Port 
Hrin, as we were approaching land we took two last hauls 
of the small mud dredge close to the shore, the one within 
a few yards of the biological station the other just along 
the base of the breakwater, and the contents of the net 
when examined yielded numerous interesting Cumacea, 
Amphipoda and Copepoda, three of which latter (Stenhelia 
denticulata, Laophonte spinosa and Ametra attenuata) 
are new to science, while several others are rare and 
interesting forms. 
So much for the general question of marine investigation: 
Biological Stations are a comparatively recent development 
which were unknown to the older naturalists. Any plan 
_ by which actual work on or close to the sea, so that the 
animals may be examined alive and in their natural sur- 
roundings, can be combined with the conveniences and 
exact methods of a laboratory is obviously a great advan- 
tage, and that is precisely what a biological station offers. 
It is a sea-side laboratory where the observer can conve- 
niently apply the refinements of modern apparatus and 
re-agents to the work of the field-naturalist. Different 
Stations may specialize in various directions, but an insti- 
tution like our Biological Station at Port Erin has I 
