MARINE ZOOLOGICAL STATION 



127 



S. LovfiN. 



rainwater the white, downy "field-wool" waves from dried stems, and 



from the more shaded niches in the 



granite arise the graceful fronds 



of ferns. The large black-hooded 



gray crow flies from hill to hill, 



while on the ground the pert gray 



backed white wagtail nods its head 



and flirts its white bordered tail. 

 It was near the end of the eight- 

 eenth century when the Danish 



zoologist, 0. F. Miiller, made the 



first trawl in a form still in use for 



the collection of animals living 



upon the sea-bottom, and thus be- 

 gan the special study of marine 



zoolosfv. Fiskebackskil was visited 



for zoological research by Professor 



Bengt Fries in 1835. Four years 



later Sven Loven and others joined 



the colony of naturalists, who 



worked with such meager facilities 



as the place could offer. Around 



the islands in the bays and fjords of the region they found a rich and 



interesting fauna distributed from 

 the shallow flats to depths of eighty 

 fathoms, over bottom varying from 

 rock, sand, shell, clay and ooze, to 

 a carpet of grass and alga?. The 

 foundation here of the Kristine- 

 berg Zoological Station by the 

 Eoyal Academy of Science in 1877 

 was due to the initiative of Loven, 

 who had become the most famous 

 and influential Swedish zoologist 

 of the nineteenth century. For 

 almost sixty years Loven investi- 

 gated problems in the morphology, 

 comparative anatomy, embryology 

 and taxonomy of various classes of 

 invertebrates, especially of the 

 echinoids, or sea-urchins. He had 

 been a pioneer in Swedish Arctic 

 scientific expeditions and deep-sea 



exploration, and hence it was fitting that he should suggest the creation 



HJALMAE Th£EL. 



