EDWARD G. GARDINER 



MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, 



WOOD'S HOLE, MASS. 



DEAR DR. ERNST, The committee of the legisla- 

 ture conducting the hearings on vivisection visited Woods 

 Hole a few weeks since to inspect the Marine Biological 

 Laboratory and the United States Fish Commission. It 

 was my privilege to escort them, and to explain to them 

 the uses of the various laboratories, and the apparatus 

 therein. 



The Marine Biological Laboratory has an annual attend- 

 ance of about one hundred and fifty students and investi- 

 gators. The students are largely professors, teachers, or 

 college students who are fitting themselves to become 

 instructors. During the thirteen years of its existence, 

 about three hundred universities, colleges, and schools 

 have been represented there by their professors, teachers, 

 and students. In its various laboratories the lower forms 

 of life, such as jelly-fish, worms, star-fish, clams, oysters, 

 crabs, etc., and occasionally fish, are subjected to experi- 

 mentation and to dissection. 



The United States Fish Commission have also extensive 

 laboratories, in which similar work is conducted by college 

 professors and students. 



In response to questions put by the chairman, I stated 

 to the committee that if either of the two bills then before 

 them should become an enforced law, all this work must 

 cease, and the doors of the laboratories be closed. Further, 

 that a great deal of the work done in the fish culture de- 



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