GENERAL INTRODUCTION i 5 



right to nominate workers, and there are few of the great 

 zoologists of Europe or America who have not worked at 

 Naples during the past fifty years. During the War the 

 station was taken over by the Italian Government, but 

 since then it has been restored to the present Director, 

 Professor R. Dohrn, the son of the founder who died in 

 1909, but it still remains partly under Italian management. 



Even more commanding in its position and architecture 

 is the wonderful museum, laboratory and aquarium founded 

 at Monaco (Plate 5) by the late Prince Albert, one of the 

 most distinguished cf oceanographers. Everyone inter- 

 ested in zoology or oceanography should endeavour to visit 

 the museum, which contains specimens of all types of marine 

 life, every form of apparatus used in the investigation of 

 the sea — even to a model of the laboratory used by the 

 Prince and his scientific staff on their numerous cruises 

 on his famous yacht the Princesse Alice. There is a per- 

 manent staff of scientists at the Station but the amount of 

 work carried out by outside investigators is small. 



In this country the largest and most important marine 

 station is the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological 

 Association (Plate 6) which is now one of the leading 

 institutions of its kind in the world. This was founded in 

 1884 and has since then been several times extended, a 

 special wing devoted to the study of the physiology, or 

 functioning, of marine animals having been added only 

 two years ago. The permanent scientific staff is larger 

 than at any other station, consisting of a Director, seven 

 naturalists, two physiologists, and an hydrographer, so that 

 not only is a large aquarium maintained and the wants of 

 the many visiting scientists, who come from all countries, 

 attended to, but a great volume of scientific work is annually 

 produced, much of it concerned with seasonal changes in 

 the sea water and the contained population, work which 



