The Liverpool Marine Biology Station on Puffin Island

Abstract

THE Liverpool Marine Biology Committee was formed in the spring of 1885 for the purpose of working up thoroughly the fauna and flora of that large rectangular area of the Irish Sea which lies around Liverpool Bay, and is bounded by the Isle of Man and the coasts of Anglesey, North Wales, Cheshire, and Lancashire. During the last three seasons the members of the Committee have conducted a large number of dredging, tow-netting, and other investigating expeditions in various parts of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee district, and, as a first result of their labours, they published, in the summer of 1886, a “First Report upon the Fauna of Liverpool Bay and the Neighbouring Seas.” It became evident at an early stage in these investigations that, as the sand-banks and channels in the immediate neighbourhood of the estuary of the Mersey are comparatively barren, it would be necessary, in order to carry on the work of the Committee satisfactorily, to establish a small marine laboratory somewhere on the coast of North Wales or Anglesey. Such a station, close to the region where there is a rich and varied fauna, and yet within easy reach of Liverpool, would enable the members of the Committee, and other biologists who were working with them, to pay frequent and regular visits to the best ground for the purpose of collecting specimens; and also to carry on observations on the habits of the animals, and to investigate their structures and life-histories. The Liverpool Marine Biology Committee have been aided in their work by small grants this year and last year from the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society, and have received most important and generous assistance, by the loan of steamers for the dredging expeditions and in other ways, from some of the Liverpool ship-owners—amongst others, from the present Mayor, Sir James Poole, from Mr. George Holt, and from the Liverpool Salvage Association —and now they owe the attainment of their desire for a marine laboratory to the kindness of Sir Richard Williams Bulkeley, Bart., of Beaumaris, in allowing them to make use, for scientific purposes, of the former Dock Board Telegraph Station on Puffin Island (Fig. 1).