2O MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



tions which provide for the fees of students or rental of research 

 rooms was sixteen in 1907 and seventeen in 1908; Rochester 

 University, the University of Cincinnati, Vassar Brothers' Insti- 

 tute, and the U. S. Department of Agriculture dropped out, and 

 McGill University, Pennsylvania State School of Forestry, 

 Williams College, the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology 

 and Yale University were added in 1908. The Wistar Institute 

 subscribed for five rooms and permitted the director of the 

 laboratory to nominate occupants, thus providing for one of our 

 greatest needs. The extension of the system of cooperating in- 

 stitutions is greatly to be desired, and there can be no doubt that 

 it is possible. 



Attendance. The total attendance was 107 in 1907 and 100 in 

 1908; of this number 60 were investigators in 1907 and 52 in 

 1908. The principal loss in attendance in recent years has been 

 due to a decrease in the number of the class of beginning in- 

 vestigators; a fact to be regretted because it is from this class 

 that fruitful investigators are to be recruited. The number of 

 independent investigators has decreased but little, being 50 in 

 1907 and 46 in 1908, two less in physiology and in botany and 

 the same number in zoology. It is entirely improbable that the 

 slight decrease in attendance represents any permanent defection, 

 for the character of the support of the laboratory has, if any- 

 thing, increased in quality rather than diminished. And the 

 growing tendency for biologists to establish summer homes of 

 their own in the immediate neighborhood of the Laboratory is a 

 sign and assurance of stability that outweighs any slight fluctua- 

 tion of numbers. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that every- 

 thing possible may be done to increase the attendance of young 

 investigators, for one of the most valuable functions of the 

 laboratory in the past has been to stimulate the desire and ambi- 

 tion for research. 



The number of students in 1908 was one more than in 1907, 

 48 and 47 respectively. The addition of new courses in 1908 did 

 not bring the expected increase in attendance, but it is hoped that 

 it may do so in 1909. So large an attendance of students as 

 used to come to Woods Hole is hardly to be expected, in view 

 of the more considerable competition of summer courses in uni- 



