DIRECTOR'S REPORT. 13 



VI. THE DIRECTOR'S REPORT 



To THE TRUSTEES OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY: 



Gentlemen: I have the honor to present a report of the twenty- 

 ninth session of the Marine Biological Laboratory for the year 

 1916. The total attendance was slightly smaller than in 1915, 

 231 as compared with 242, but larger than that of any earlier 

 year. There were 129 investigators and 102 students, a falling 

 off of 8 in the number of investigators and of 3 in the number of 

 students. The decrease in investigators falls entirely under the 

 head of investigation under instruction; indeed the number of 

 independent investigators shows a gain of 5. The decrease 

 should therefore be regarded as probably of a fluctuating char- 

 acter, as the group concerned consists largely of research students 

 of members of the independent group of investigators. The 

 slight decrease in student attendance was due entirely to our 

 method of registration, for the number of applicants for courses 

 was larger than ever before; after the courses were registered to 

 the limit of our accommodations many students were refused 

 registration. Later some of those registered failed to appear. 

 It is obvious, therefore, that heads of departments should be 

 allowed to register in excess of accommodations to a certain 

 extent, in the expectation that a certain proportion of those 

 registered will finally be unable to attend. The past season is 

 the first one in which registration in advance was positively 

 required, and this was done because the experience of 1915 had 

 shown that unlimited registration was likely to exceed capacity, 

 as indeed the number of applications in 1916 actually showed. 



In spite of the slight decrease in numbers there was an increase 

 in the receipts from investigators and students over all previous 

 sessions, viz.: $8,725 in 1916 as compared with $8,325 in 1915, 







$7,300 in 1914, $6,160 in 1913, and $5,175 in 1912. The gain 

 was entirely from the research side due to the fact that cooperat- 

 ing institutions subscribed $800 more in 1916 than in 1915 ($5,000 

 as against $4,200). The number of subscribing institutions was 

 40 in 1916 and 37 in 1915. The Supply Department has again 

 shown a large increase of sales, which amounted to $21,096.65, 



