142 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



With the material brought alive from Mexico, experiments in 

 pedigree breeding, hibernizing, and experiments to determine the 

 effect of temperature, moisture, etc., in the production of new 

 characteristics in the species are being carried on at Chicago. These 

 are progressing satisfactorily under excellent conditions, and bid fair 

 to give desirable results in due time. In anj^ such research it is only 

 after prolonged study through generation after generation that results 

 at all worthy of consideration can be obtained. 



H. V. Wilson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C. 

 Grant No. 33. For morphology and classification of decp-sca 

 sponges. ( For first report see Year Book No. 2 , p. xliv. ) $1 ,000. 



With the aid of the grant Professor Wilson was enabled to spend 

 fourteen months (July, 1902-August, 1903) in Europe engaged in the 

 uninterrupted study of certain deep-sea sponges. These sponges 

 formed part of a collection made in 1891 by the U. S. steamer 

 Albatross, under the direction of Mr. Alexander Agassiz, in the Pacific 

 Ocean, off the coasts of Mexico, Central and South America, and off 

 the Galapagos Islands. 



The bulk of his time abroad was spent in Berlin, where he occu- 

 pied a working place in the laboratory of Prof. F. E. Schulze, the 

 eminent authority on the classification of the Hexactinellida and on 

 the structure of sponges at large. Professor Schulze' s collections of 

 Hexactinellid sponges are unrivaled. The collections of sponges 

 in the adjoining Museum fiir Naturkunde, which are under the 

 charge of Prof. W. Weltner, likewise proved most valuable. In the 

 use of the collections, the libraries, and the photographic and other 

 apparatus, every facility was allowed, both in the zoological labora- 

 tory and in the museum. 



During the summer of 1903 he visited the Rijks Museum in Eey- 

 den, the Mnseum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and the British 

 Museum of Natural History in London. In each museum every 

 opportunity was allowed for the study of the types. 



On his return to America Professor Wilson wrote up the results 

 of his investigation. This work has just been published as one of 

 the ' ' Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard 

 College" (vol. xxx, No. i. Reports on an Exploration off the 

 West Coasts of Mexico, Central and South America, etc. xxx. 

 The Sponges. By H. V. Wilson, pp. 1-164, with 26 plates). 



Abstract of Report. — In addition to the discovery of new species, 

 certain results of general biological interest accrued from the study 



