PLANKTON STUDIES AND THEIR UTILITY. 281 



Plankton Studies and Their Utility. 



Maurice Ricker. 



This production is intended to give the students at the Station an 

 insight into the work the University is attempting to do on the plant and 

 animal life of the lakes, streams and ponds in this part of the state. Still 

 better would be a few days spent in the field and laboratory with the 

 workers. 



I may say in passing that none of the activities of the Station workers 

 appear quite so mysterious to the uninitiated as does the plankton collect- 

 ing. People expect to find an occasional crank pursuing butterfiies with, 

 a net. The gathering of bird-skins and even nests and eggs by the enthu- 

 siastic collector can be accounted for, because they have seen such things 

 displayed in museums. The same might be said of the work of the 

 botanists, for people have been accustomed to herb-gatherers and their 

 pressed fiowers since time began. The geologist, with his interest in all 

 kinds of rocks, is regarded always as a prospector. But what shall they 

 think of the men who labor for hours, often in the darkness of night, and 

 even in storms; rowing a boat for miles over rough seas, or wading dan- 

 gerous swamps, just to pump water through a little silk net, the contents 

 of which the collector carefully empties into a small bottle. They watch 

 him put in a carefully measured preservative and chuckle over his catch 

 of objects which are all but invisible. Thereafter the term "bug-house 

 people" takes on a new significance. 



Could they know the months of labor spent in studying these forms, 

 dissecting out and drawing parts too small to be seen except under the 

 compound microscope; the poring over drawings, and the tedious transla- 

 tion of works in other language ;then they surely would be convinced that 

 the student was the victim of no trifling mental aberration. 



At a risk of becoming tedious and commonplace, I must begin by re- 

 calling a few facts well known to many of you. July 1, 1738, Charles 

 Darwin opened a note-book for the purpose of recording facts bearing on 

 the transmutation of species. Fifteen months later he happened to read, 

 for amusement "Malthus on Population." 



In February, 1858, Wallace lay in a chill, and while thinking over the 

 positive checks, disease, war, famine, and so forth; as discussed in the 

 essays of Malthus, he conceived the idea that those who survive these 

 checks to population must be the stronger ones. In two days it was on 

 its way around the world in a letter to Darwin. Darwin had written 240 

 pages on the same theory some fourteen years previously, but the essay 

 had never been published. 



I need not tell you how this doctrine has revolutionized the thought 

 of the century, and what an impetus it gave to the most minute study of 

 every living plant and animal. Every creature became a big interroga- 

 tion point. The question was no longer, how does it look, so that we may 



