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MARINE FISH HATCHERY AND BIOLOGICAL STATION, PORTOBELLO SIR, — I have the honour to submit the following report on the Portobello Marine Biological Station for the year ended 31st March, 1949. Lack of funds and the prevailing difficulties with regard to material and labour have prevented the carrying-out of projected works for the reconditioning of the Station and for adding to its facilities for research. Only essential repairs, such as the renewal of the shaft and glands of the pump and the replacement of worn-out pipes, have been possible. The aged wharf is now in poor condition, and steps are being taken to effect such repairs as will make it reasonably safe for the time being. Improved access by land is much to be desired, but no possibility of providing this has yet been discovered. Research work has been carried out at Portobello by various members of the Zoology Department of the University of Otago ; Miss Brewin is continuing her work of the embryology of the compound ascidian, Distaplia fasmeriana, and Miss Richards and Miss Borland both used the Station for field* observation and collection of Tevebratella inconspicua Benhamina obliquata, the subjects Of their theses. Research work in zoology was also done by visiting members of the staff of Canterbury University College, Professor Percival continuing his research on Dolichoglossus otagcensis and Miss Parry collecting sea anemones for her monograph of the sea-anemone fauna of New Zealand. Early in spring, 1948, Dr. and Mrs. T. Levring, from Gottenburg, Sweden, spent a week at the Station collecting marine algae. They were accompanied by Miss L. B. Moore, Algologist of the Botany Division, New Zealand. Other prominent algologists who visited the Station after the Seventh Pacific Science Congress were Dr. F. G. Papenfuss, Associate Professor of Botany, University of California; Professor H. J. Lam, Director of Rijksherbarium, Leiden, Holland; and Mr. H. B. S. Womersley, Lecturer in Botany, Adelaide. All the oceanographers and marine zoologists who visited the Station after the Congress (Professor C. M. Yonge, Regis Professor of Zoology, Glasgow; . Dr. Martin Johnson, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California ; Dr. R. W. Hiatt, University of Hawaii, Honolulu ; and Dr. Anton Brunn, Keeper of the Zoological Museum, Copenhagen, and leader of the 1950-52 Danish Deep Sea Expedition) were impressed by the .facilities offered by the Station and the possibilities for its improvement in the future. I have, &c., A. E. Hefforb, Chairman of the Board.

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