Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/264

238 almost anything. It is quite common to see one of them dining off departed brother.'

have received the Annual Report of the Millport Marine Biological Station for 1898:—"The Committee are now in a position to give an account of the first year of the actual working of the Station. Under these circumstances they consider the Report of 1898 to be of great importance, seeing that it is the first which provides data from actual experience by means of which a forecast of the future success of the Station may with some degree of certainty be drawn. They feel that they have every reason to be satisfied with the results of this crucial year. They can report good progress, not only in regard to the numbers who visited the Robertson Museum, and to the degree in which the facilities afforded by the Laboratory were utilized by scientific workers, but also in regard to the measure of public support accorded to the scheme. From the Curator's Report it will be seen that there were over eight thousand visitors to the Robertson Museum during the past year, and that tables in the Laboratory were utilized for terms varying from a week to a month on thirty-eight different occasions. During the past year many additions have been made to the Station, especially in the Laboratory Department, where good sets of reagents, dissecting-troughs, and vessels have been provided. A dark room for photographic purposes has been constructed. A system of heating the Laboratory and Museum by hot-water pipes has been carried out. Outbuildings for work and store-rooms have been built, and the laying down of a jetty near the Station will be carried out as soon as possible. An apparatus for keeping up continuous motion in a number of vessels has been fitted up, &c. The carrying out of an efficient system of heating was a work of very great importance. During the previous winter, partly owing to the newness of the building and to its situation near the shore, and partly also to the method of heating then in use, a portion of the Robertson Collection, in particular the Foraminifera and Ostracoda, suffered from damp. Mrs. Robertson set herself to the arduous task of cleaning and remounting the whole of these specimens. It is matter for congratulation that no such injury can now happen to the collection, as it was matter for regret that it ever did occur."

has its Oyster feast, Greenwich its Whitebait dinner, and now Great Yarmouth, on the 10th of last December, held its inaugural "Sprat Banquet." From a "Souvenir" which has been published detailing this function we find some facts relating to Clupea sprattus which are at