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 ZOOLOGY MARINE ZOOLOGY DURING the summer months for the last twenty years I have lived on board my yacht the Glimpse more or less in Essex waters, and have devoted much of my time to the study of the marine animals, either by dredging or collecting on shore. I have also done much from the deck of the yacht, which has enabled me to obtain various specimens floating in the tide. Having thus had a somewhat unusual experience, I venture to do the best I can for my subject, although I feel that it is very incomplete, and that a great deal remains to be learned both as to specific identity and local distribution. If in years gone by I had known that it would have been my lot to write an essay on the marine invertebrata of the coast of Essex I should have collected the necessary material and studied several groups of animals which I have almost entirely neglected. My aim has chiefly been to find out how to kill certain animals in a fully expanded condition, and permanently to preserve them with their natural colours, either as transparent lantern slides, mounted in Canada balsam, or kept in glass vessels in undiluted glycerine. Animals not suited for these purposes have been almost entirely neglected, and I have directed far more attention to experiments with species easily procured than to making a complete and accurately named collection of those living on the coast. Though I have a large amount of the above-named preparations, show- ing the general character of the animals extremely well, they are some- times not suitable for specific identification, since they cannot be turned about or dissected, and the characteristic structure may be lost or hidden. In connection with the distribution of the animals along the coast it must be borne in mind that living on the yacht has led to the special study of places where the anchorage was secure and where we could obtain what is necessary, and to the neglect of other localities open to objection from a yachtsman's point of view. Since my collecting has thus been done from the side of the water the rarity or abundance of particular species may probably appear different to what it would be to any one collecting from the shore. There are also great changes from 69