MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 43 



" The smaller, or western, pond was drained on 

 May 15th, in preparation for further experiments in 

 lobster culture, and we then found between 300 and 400 

 young plaice which had been hatched on April 25th, 1906, 

 and were thus just over a year old. I carefully measured 

 300 of these fish, and found the largest to be 5f inches in 

 length, and the smallest If inches, the mean length being 

 2 J inches. All these young fish appeared to be in a 

 perfectly healthy condition, and seemed well nourished 

 for their size. They must have subsisted entirely upon 

 the minute floating organisms in the water of the pond. 

 The wide range in size, considering that they were all of 

 exactly the same age, is noteworthy. Several of them 

 afforded excellent examples of bi-colouration, pigment 

 being present on both sides of the body, and only a small 

 portion of the anterior end of the usually unpigmented 

 lower side being normal in colour." 



Lobster Culture. 



" During the months of May and June twenty 

 ' berried ' female lobsters were purchased from the local 

 fishermen and placed in the western pond. Large stones 

 were arranged so as to afford hiding-places for them, and 

 they were regularly fed with pieces of fresh fish. This 

 was done in order to find out whether the conditions were 

 favourable to the retention of the eggs on the swimmerets 

 of the parent lobster until they were ready for hatching. 

 On -Tuly 18th the pond was again drained, and it was 

 found that while some of the lobsters had stripped them- 

 selves of their eggs, others had retained them, and that 

 the retained eggs w r ere beginning to hatch out. It was 

 also found that the bottom of the pond was covered with 

 a luxuriant growth of a green filamentous alga, and that 

 the eggs of the lobsters were involved in it. As it 



