MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 33 



Professor Boyce has continued his important investi- 

 gations into the bacteriology of the oyster and its 

 possible connection with disease in man. He has drawn 

 up a report upon the subject which was read before the 

 Liverpool Meeting of the British Association. As an 

 account of the present state of the question, and a 

 summary of Prof. Boyce' s bacteriological work will be 

 given, in a few weeks, in the Annual Report of the Lan- 

 cashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory, it is unnecessary to do 

 more here than to state that the fresh experiments on 

 inoculating Oysters with the typhoid Bacillus and keeping 

 them under observation, both in stagnant and in running 

 sea-water, show (1) that the typhoid organism does not 

 multiply in the stomach or tissues of the Oyster, (2) that 

 Oysters fresh from the sea contain fewer bacteria (chiefly 

 the common colon bacillus) than those that have been 

 stored or kept in shops, and (3) the power of the Oyster 

 to get rid of bacterial infection when placed in a stream 

 of running water, there being a great diminution or total 

 disappearance of the Bacillus typhosus in from one to 

 seven days. 



Mr. Edward T. Browne has sent me the following notes 

 on the species of Medusa?, and other constituents of the 

 pelagic fauna, taken by him at Port Erin during his work 

 there in April 1896 :— 



" This visit to Port Erin in April, 1896, was specially 

 made to obtain more specimens of the interesting medusa 

 Hybocodon prolife?', for the completion of my work on the 

 development of its ova. This medusa was fairly plentiful 

 in 1893, and very abundant in April 1894, but was un- 

 fortunately absent in 1896. 



" The pelagic fauna throughout the whole of April 1896. 

 was conspicuously poor in medusae and other pelagic 

 animals usually found in the spring of the year. This 



