A MARINE BIOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY. 459 



shelter of the eaves and barn. The robin builds within hand- 

 reach of the doorsill, and the wren and martin, leaving their old 

 homes in the forest to some woodpecker more lazy than his fel- 

 lows, scold and quarrel for the possession of any hole or box, so 

 long as it is near the dwelling place of man. Last, but by no 

 means the least, this subtle influence reaches across a waste of 

 tossing tree tops, and from the yet unknown prairie land come 

 birds to dwell within his fields and gladden his heart with their 

 sweet evening songs. 



A MARINE BIOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY.* 



Br C. 0. WHITMAN, 



HEAD PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 



IT is now twenty years since the memorable attempt to found 

 a seaside laboratory on Penikese. Prof. Louis Agassiz lived 

 long enough to demonstrate the impracticability of maintaining 

 a summer school in such an inaccessible place, but unfortunately 

 not long enough to repeat the experiment under more favorable 

 conditions. The idea of transplanting the laboratory to the more 

 convenient locality of Woods Holl, proposed by Alexander Agas- 

 siz, was abandoned on account of the little interest shown by the 

 colleges which were appealed to for support. Although the con- 

 tinuance of this school was cut short by the untimely death of its 

 master, the interest it awakened lived on and has brought forth 

 a fairly rich crop of seaside laboratories. 



About ten years after the abandonment of the Penikese School, 

 Prof. Baird established, under the auspices of the United States 

 Fish Commission, a marine laboratory at Woods Holl, and suc- 

 ceeded in getting a number of colleges interested in its support. 

 For various reasons — beyond the control of Prof. Baird — the lab- 

 oratory failed to attract the younger morphologists of the coun- 

 try. There was no lack of facilities, for these were superior to any 

 that had ever before been offered in this country ; and there was 

 little lack of means, with the United States Government behind 

 it, supplying money and a fleet of vessels such as no other station 

 in the world has eA 7 er had at its command. Of late years, since 

 the station passed into the hands of Colonel Marshall McDonald, 

 its facilities for work have been increased, and a much larger 

 number of morphologists take advantage of them every summer. 

 The main functions of the station, however, continue, and must 

 ever continue, to be devoted to the work of a great fish commis- 

 sion. No other like commission in the world has been able to 



*Read before the American Society of Naturalists, December 28, 1892. 



