A HISTORY OF CORNWALL Quiller Couch of Penzance, and his staunch disciple and helper William Laughlin the Polperro coastguardsman, together with Mr. C. W. Peach, the indefatigable Dr. Cocks of Falmouth, and Mr. Williams Hockin of Truro, were all of them devoted workers, and they laid a splendid foundation for the study of the marine life of the Cornish seas. Then came that wonderful band of Penzance naturalists, whose studies covered nearly the whole domain of county systematic biology, and whose records in the Transactions of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society (new series) and else- where are constantly referred to in almost every natural history article in the present volume. Two at least of these naturalists, namely Mr. Fortescue W. Millett and Mr. George Fox Tregelles, though both departed from the county, are still students of Cornish marine zoology, and from their ripe experience have given great assistance to the writer. During the past fifteen years the Marine Biological Association has been engaged inter alia in a systematic and continuous examination of the marine life of the Plymouth district, and the results as summarized in ' The Plymouth Marine Invertebrate Fauna' in vol. vii, part 2 (1904) of their Journal have been laid under extensive tribute for the present article. Between 1890 and 1900 Mr. Rupert Vallentin worked assiduously at the plankton and marine fauna generally of the Falmouth district, and is now engaged in making similar investigations at St. Ives. Among the naturalists from without who have collected along the Cornish coast are Barlee, Montagu, Forbes, Alder, Jeffreys, Bowerbank, Hincks, Canon Norman, and Macintosh, and Victor Carus at Scilly, so that references to Cornwall occur in nearly every monograph on the marine life of the British Isles. In the following annotated list an attempt is made to indicate the distribu- tion of the species in the Cornish seas so far as the available data will permit. Notwithstanding the many observers our knowledge of several of the sections is still in a very fragmentary condition. While the Mollusca and Bryozoa have been widely studied and recorded over a considerable area, the extreme difficulty of identifying the Sponges and Compound Ascidia makes a record of their country distribution impossible, and but for the fortunate circumstance that many of the earlier specimens passed through the hands of Bowerbank and Milne-Edwards respectively, the county lists for these two extensively represented groups would have been meagre in the extreme. Most sections, too, have naturally been much more carefully studied around some centres than others, and certain parts of the coast have received minute attention, while others have been neglected. The Plymouth district, Falmouth Bay, and Mount's Bay have been diligently examined but except on the Mol- lusca at Hayle and Padstow very little work has been done anywhere along the north coast. Polperro, Fowey, and Gorran are classical ground, but in spite of recent work systematic dredging would be certain to prove remunerative all along the whole of that coast. Very little attention has been given to the waters around the Lizard peninsula, and much remains to be done to the west of Penzance. Victor Carus studied the fauna of the Scillonian seas for several months in 1850, and George Henry Lewes published some jottings on his observations there, but except for the Mollusca comparatively little has been done on the marine life since Carus's visit. 114
