1905- 



205 



NOTES ON THE INVERTEBRATE FAUNA OF 

 SKERRIES, CO. DUBLIN. 



BY NATHANIEL COLGAN, M.K.I. A. 



AmonGvST the many branches of nature study which have 

 been treated of in these pages from time to time, perhaps 

 marine zoology has occupied least space. And 3'et there are 

 few pursuits of greater interest than the dredging which 

 furnishes to the student of sea life his indispensable raw 

 material. Dredging, in fact, may be regarded as a species 

 of angling, and shares with angling, properly so-called, all 

 the fascination that comes from the uncertainties and wide 

 possibilities of its results. The unexpected is perpetually 

 happening, and yet not with sufficient frequency to dull the 

 edge of appetite. Though you ma.y draw blank after blank 

 in your day's work, the moment when the dredge-net swims 

 into your ken in the blue water at the stern of your boat, 

 as the last couple of fathoms of dripping rope are hauled in, 

 is always one of excitement even for the experienced dredger. 

 For custom can never quite stale the infinite variety of the 

 hidden world of the sea-floor which the dredge can but 

 blindly grope along. 



It is, however, the novice in marine zoology who enjoj^s 

 the full zest of dredging. Nine-tenths of his hauls bring him 

 up something strange, some living mollusc which he has 

 known hitherto only from its worn shell cast up on the shore — 

 some brilliant star-fish or urchin with its wonderfully complex 

 organism in full activity, or some delicate form of zoophyte 

 rooted in the battered valve of a scallop. The present notes 

 are written by just such a novice. They give, in condensed 

 form, the results of his first essay in sea-dredging, carried on 

 during the course of a quiet holiday at Skerries in July last. 

 It need hardly be said that the notes aim rather at arousing 

 interest in what is, perhaps, a somewhat neglected branch of 

 nature study in Ireland than at adding anything realh' new 

 to our knowledge of the well explored sea-fauna of Co. Dublin. 

 And if the intrusion of a mere beginner into the abstrusities 

 of marine zoology calls for justification, I would only quote 



