departmi;nt of marixi; biology. 119 



chemical, and biological condition in the sea would enable us to predict the 

 periodic success or failure of many of our fisheries. 



But to return to the specific plans of the Department : We must have not 

 only an ocean-going vessel such as our Anton Dohrn for this work, but a 

 well-equipped land station is almost equally important. The use of complex 

 and delicate apparatus and the maintaining of animals and plants for long 

 periods in a living state are all but impossible upon a ship, but even a small 

 laboratory may provide ample facilities for such intensive studies. Our 

 present bases at Tortugas and at Miami afford excellent opportunities for 

 the study of the Florida Stream, the Yucatan Channel and the adjacent 

 waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Bahama Banks, but for the Caribbean 

 it will be desirable in the near future to establish a small branch station in 

 Jamaica. 



THE JAMAICA EXPEDITION. 



Several of the researches conducted during the past four years at Tortugas 

 led to the conclusion that they should be supplemented by studies carried 

 out in the late winter and early spring months, when, owing to the rough 

 weather, the Tortugas Laboratory can not conveniently be maintained open. 

 Accordingly, in February and March 1912, the Director, accompanied by 

 Professors Louis R. Cary, Hubert Lyman Clark, Joseph A. Cushman, Gil- 

 man A, Drew, Robert Tracy Jackson, H. E. Jordan, E. E. Reinke, David 

 H. Tennent, with Mr. George M. Gray as collector, visited Montego Bay, 

 Jamaica. Two houses, belonging to Dr. A. G. McCatty, were rented and 

 served very well for laboratory accommodations; and local boats and men 

 were employed to aid Mr. Gray in collecting for the investigators. 



The expedition developed the fact that the region of Montego Bay, Ja- 

 maica, is one of the richest in the West Indies in echinoderms, for Prof. 

 H. L. Clark collected 57 species in the shallow waters along the shores of 

 the bay. Many of these forms were extraordinarily abundant, so much so, 

 indeed, that from the laboratory standpoint none of us had seen a better 

 locality for their study. We were fortunate, therefore, in having with us 

 Professor Tennent, whose previous work upon echinoderm hybridization, 

 which he conducted at Tortugas, has attracted so much discussion. At 

 Montego Bay he obtained essentially the same results from the reciprocal 

 cross between Toxopneiistes and Hipponoe (Tripneustes) as he observed in 

 Florida, thus proving that the alteration in dominance correlated with the 

 relative acidity or alkalinity (HO ions) of the sea-water is not peculiar to 

 Florida waters. Moreover, he succeeded in effecting an interesting cross 

 between Toxopneustes and Cidaris. The great care taken in his technique 

 and the constant maintenance of control experiments have ruled out the 

 possibility that his results are due to careless or unclean methods. 



Professor Jackson having but just published his monumental work upon 

 the "Phylogeny of the Echini,"' which marks an epoch in the world's knowl- 

 edge of the ancestry of these forms, was in a position to avail himself fully 



