2 26 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



ments. He is told to send directions as to the material he 

 desires for study ; he is notified of the supplies which will he 

 allowed him, and of the matters of hotels, lodging, and bank- 

 ing, necessary even to a biologist. At the first sight of the 

 building he is impressed most favorably, and it is not long 

 before he comes to look upon his work-place as his particular 

 home, open to him day, night, and holiday. He likes the gen- 

 eral air of quietness — in no little way significant of system in 

 every branch of the station's organization ; his neighbors are 

 friendly, and he feels that even the attendants are willing, 

 often anxicms to give him help. 



At present the station at Naples consists of two buildings ; 

 the first, shown in the foreground in the accompanying figure, 

 is the older, the main building ; behind it is the newly built 

 physiological laboratory. In the basement of the main 

 building is the aquarium, well managed, open to the public, and 

 eagerly visited. Passing into the aquarium room from the 

 main entrance, one descends into a long, dark, concreted room, 

 lighted only through wall-tanks brilliant on every side with the 

 varied forms of life. There are in all about two dozen large 

 aquaria embedded in the walls of the sides and of the main 

 partition of the room. The water is clear and V:)lue. The 

 background in each aquaria, built of rock work, catches the 

 li'-'ht from above and throws in clear relief the living inmates. 

 The first tank will perhaps be full of star fish and sea urchins, 

 bright in color, often clustered on the glass eacli with a dim 

 halo of pale, thread-like feet. In the background may be a 

 living clump of crinoids, flowering out like a garden of briglit- 

 colored lilies. In a neighboring tank, rich with dark-colored 

 seaweeds, will be a group of flying gurnards, reddish and 

 brilliantly spotted, feeling cautiously along the bottom with the 

 finger-like rays of their wing-shaped fins. Here, too, may be 

 squids, delicate and fish-like, swimming timidly u]) and down ; 

 perhaps a series of huge triton snails below amid clustered 

 eo-trs of cuttle fish. In another tank would be a bank of sea 

 anemones with all the large and brilliant forms common to 

 southern waters. Here maybe corals in the background and a 

 forest of sea fans in orange, red and yellow, with a precious 



