THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 613 



along the coast for sharks and strange fish ; to-morrow it will take 

 a party to Naushon for worms and sea-cucumbers. So it goes, day- 

 after day, constantly bringing material for the workers in the 

 laboratory. At night another kind of collecting is tried. Many 

 of the smaller animals and the larvae of the larger kinds come to 

 the surface of the sea when the sky is dark and the water calm. 

 Then the naturalist, with a net of gauze, skims the surface of the 

 sea, and catches the life found there. The results of such surface- 

 skimming are wonderful, and no one who has never seen the 

 operation would begin to imagine the richness of the catch. And 

 then, how quickly it dies ! At night there are millions of animals 

 in the dishes into which the tow is poured ; in the morning all are 

 dead. So the skimmings must be studied soon after they are 

 taken, if one wishes to utilize them. 



The instruction given at the laboratory is largely personal. 

 Each student is carefully watched by the instructors, and natu- 

 rally the beginners receive more attention than those in the upper 

 laboratory. They also have their daily lectures upon the general 

 principles of zoology and botany. There are frequently other 

 laboratory lectures upon subjects of more general scientific in- 

 terest. These are given in the evening by the laboratory staff or 

 by visiting naturalists, and no lecture course in the country can 

 boast of such subjects treated by such masters. Naturally, they 

 are appreciated by all, and the little lecture-room is always 

 crowded when they occur. The lectures for 1890 have been issued 

 in book-form, and the volume has been highly praised by the 

 scientific press of the world. 



To the student of to-day books are almost as important as 

 specimens. He needs them to show him not only what has al- 

 ready been found out, so that he need not waste his time in 

 duplicating the labors of some foreign naturalist, but also to 

 show him the structure or development in allied forms, so that 

 with the larger array of facts he can have a basis for interpreta- 

 tion of the meaning of his own discoveries. So the laboratory has 

 gathered together a small library. Most of the publishing natu- 

 ralists of America have given extra copies of their papers, and a 

 generous friend has supplied the means for the purchase of com- 

 plete sets of several of the most important European periodicals. 



Although started in Boston, the Marine Biological Laboratory 

 is a national rather than a local institution. A student from 

 California is as warmly welcomed as one from the immediate 

 neighborhood. In its four years students have come from twenty- 

 two States, from Canada and Japan. Philadelphia has sent more 

 students than Boston; while Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Cali- 

 fornia, and Kansas have been represented. The fees charged are, 

 for the lower laboratory, thirty dollars ; for the upper, fifty dol- 



