24 



C. HEDLEY. 



garious periwinkle packs together in scores. Once a 

 collector picked up a derelict bottle among the rocks at 

 Watson's Bay. Washing out its contents with care, he 

 found this chance handful to contain a hundred and fifty-five 

 different species of shells. 1 



In Europe or the United States where the marine fauna 

 is comparatively scanty and where there are a host of 

 specialists, it has been a heavy task to catalogue the fauna. 

 Here where the harvest is greater and the labourers fewer 

 it is of course more difficult still. Work in this direction 

 has, however, been proceeding steadily of late years. 



There is no recent summary, brut a census of the marine 

 invertebrate fauna of Port Jackson prepared by Mr. T. 

 Whitelegge, twenty-five years ago, enumerated 2,136 

 species. 2 



No other similar area in the southern hemisphere has yet 

 been catalogued. From a larger and infinitely better 

 studied district, the Irish Sea, Prof. Herdman reports 1681 

 marine invertebrates. From the neighbourhood of Trieste 

 in the Adriatic, Dr. Graeffe gives 1,268 species, and Dr. 

 Sumner repeats exactly the same total for Woods Hole, 

 U.S.A. 3 From an excellent summary of the fauna of the 

 Firth of Forth, lately presented by Mr. William Evans, 4 

 it appears that 1,213 marine invertebrates have been 

 identified from this area. Lest we, in this young country, 

 should be discouraged at the slow progress of our science, 

 we may observe the confession of Mr. Evans that scarcely 

 more than half his local fauna is yet catalogued, after two 

 centuries of research by one of the most intellectual cities 

 of the world. 



1 Henn and Brazier, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, (2) ix, 1894, p. 165. 



2 Whitelegge, this Journal, xxiii, 1889, pp. 163-296. 



3 Sumner, op. cit., 1913, p. 88. 



4 Eoyal Physical Society of Edinburgh, xvii, 1909, pp. 1— 64d. 



