St. Andrews as a site for the study of marine animals has a reputation probably at least as ancient as the foundation of its University (the oldest Scottish, viz. 1411), for amongst the early records of the latter allusion is made to the marvels of the sea and its inhabitants as a means for improving the minds of its students. For a long time, however, no special lectures on natural history were given. The scientific advantages of the situation, indeed, were first prominently recognised by Edward Forbes and the brothers Goodsir. Thus the former, for instance, picked up, for the first time in Britain Echiurus, on the sands after a storm; and the two Goodsirs, as students, were familiar with its marine rarities, and afterwards read many zoological papers at its Literary and Philosophical Society. Prof. John Reid, the physiologist, studied the development of zoophytes and mollusks in its rock pools, and Prof. G. E. Day, his successor in the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology, and Miss Otté, lost no opportunity of interesting the students in marine zoology. Besides, the occupants of the Chair of Natural History from its foundation in 1753, and including Professors Vilant, Dick, Forrest, Cleghorn, Adamson, Ferrie, Macdonald, and Nicholson, as well as Dr. McVicar, the University lecturer, all more or less drew from the rich marine resources in their proximity.