01^ NEW SOUTH WALES. 147 



Macleay, that I should work in his museum, and his kind offer of 

 hospitahty, both of which I thankfully accepted, afforded me the 

 opportunity of continuing my pursuits and saving my time from 

 further waste. 



I can even adduce statistical proof to show that mine is no 

 exceptional case, but that the same want has operated elsewhere. 



In the pamphlet upon the opening of the zoological station in 

 Naples in the year 1865, I find this announcement. While in 

 former years the number of zoologists visiting Naples probably 

 fluctuated between four and eight, already in the first year, from 

 Easter, 1874, to Easter, 1875, no less than thirty-six " savans," 

 scientific investigators, have pursued their investigations on 

 marine animals in the zoological station. Of this number 2 were 

 Austrians, 4 Italians, 5 Englishmen, 5 Dutch, 5 Russians, and 

 15 Germans. That through the establishment of a tolerably 

 good laboratory the number has increased sixfold, is a striking 

 testimony that there is no dearth of ivilling workers and competent 

 men, hut only of suitable places to worJc in. 



I would add a few words on the stations already existing, and 

 on those projected. 



Whether the embryo of the zoological station in Messina, at 

 which Dr. Dohrn and myself laboured, has received further 

 development I know not, but Dr. Dohrn founded what is properly 

 speaking, the first zoological station at Naples. This establish- 

 ment, which cost him about 100,000 thalers, for which the town 

 of Naples gave him gratuitously, but under certain conditions, 

 the best site on the seashore in the Villa Reale, and of which I 

 now present the photographic view, is described by its founder in 

 a letter to me as '^prosperous and flourishing.''^ But this letter was 

 written in the year 1875, and since that time I have been for more 

 than two years out of reach of any communication by the post. 



In America a similar institution was established in New York 

 under the direction of Professor Alexander Agassiz, and a similar 

 one was projected in Trieste in connection with the Universities 

 of Vienna and Gratz. 



