EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The Liverpool Marine Biology Committee was constituted 

 in 1885, with the object of investigating the Fauna and 

 Flora of the Irish Sea. 



The dredging, trawling, and other collecting expeditions 

 organised by the Committee have been carried on inter- 

 mittently since that time, and a considerable amount of 

 material, both published and unpublished, has been accu- 

 mulated. Twenty-five Annual Reports of the Committee 

 and five volumes dealing with the " Fauna and Flora " 

 have been issued. At an early stage of the investigations 

 it became evident that a Biological Station or Laboratory 

 on the sea-shore nearer the usual collecting grounds than 

 Liverpool would be a material assistance in the work. 

 Consequently the Committee, in 1887, established the 

 Puffin Island Biological Station on the North Coast of 

 Anglesey, and later on, in 1892, moved to the more 

 commodious and accessible Station at Port Erin in the 

 centre of the rich collecting grounds of the south end of 

 the Isle of Man. A larger Biological Station and Fish 

 Hatchery, on a more convenient site at Port Erin, has 

 since been erected, and was opened for work in July, 1902. 



In these twenty-five years' experience of a Biological 

 Station, where College students and amateurs form a 

 large proportion of the workers, the want has been 

 frequently felt of a series of detailed descriptions of the 

 structure of certain common typical animals and plants, 

 chosen as representatives of their groups, and dealt with 

 by specialists. The same want has probably been felt in 

 other similar institutions and in many College laboratories. 



The objects of the Committee and of the workers at the 

 Biological Station were at first chiefly faunistic and 

 speciographic. The work must necessarily be so when 

 opening up a new district. Some of the workers have 

 published papers on morphological points, or on embry- 



