192 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



netic sense" may possibly be involved in the reaction. The homing 

 instinct in the untrained noddy and sooty terns of Bird Key they find 

 to be far superior to that even of the best-trained homing pigeon, these 

 birds having made returns to Bird Key from Cape Hatteras, Havana, 

 Mobile, and the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. 



Experiments upon these birds led Watson and Lashley to investi- 

 gate the law of habit-formation in man, and they find that practice 

 for short intervals of tune with well-timed intervals for rest is a more 

 efficient method for learning than long-continued periods of practice 

 with but httle rest. Thus, in our schools, better results would be 

 achieved by shorter mental strains alternating with periods of manual 

 training, bodily exercise, or freedom from study. 



"\'olume 8 of the Papers from the Department of Marine Biology 

 contains 9 papers, the authors being Frank A. Potts (3 papers), Hubert 

 Lyman Clark, Grace Medes, E. Newton Harvey, Alfred G. Mayer, 

 Paul Bartsch, and Ulric Dahlgren; 7 of these result in whole or in part 

 from studies conducted at the Murray Islands, Torres Straits, in 1913, 

 while 2 others represent work done at Tortugas or elsewhere under the 

 auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. As most of these 

 papers have already been reported upon in detail elsewhere, it will not 

 be necessary to refer to them again, but it should be stated that syste- 

 matic work upon the corals and the ecology of the reefs and upon the 

 echinoderms of the Murray Islands remain to be published in quarto 

 form, the authors being Drs. Vaughan, Mayer, Cary, and Clark. 



The following papers are known to have been pubhshed elsewhere 

 as a result of studies carried out at Tortugas or under the auspices of 

 the Department of Marine Biology: 



L. R. Cary: The Alcyonaria as a factor in reef limestone formation. Proceedings National 



Academy of Sciences, vol. 1, pp. 285-289, 1915. 

 E. \\. Gudger: The Whale Shark, New York Zoologica, vol. I, pp. 349-389.— The gland of 



the clasper in sharks, and utero-gestation in the sharp-nosed shark, Scoliodon 



terranovce. Science, vol. 41, pp. 435-439, 1915. 

 E. Newton Harvey: Cell permeability for acids. Internationale Zeitschrift fur phys.-chem. 



Biologic, Bd. I, pp. 463^78, Nov. 1914. 

 Alfred G. Mayer: Ecology of the Murray Island coral reef. Proceedings National Academv 



of Sciences, vol. 1, pp. 211-214, 1915. 



The nature of nerve conduction in Cassiopea. Ibid., pp. 270-274, 1915. 



History of Tahiti, Fiji, Papua, etc. Popular Science Monthly, 1915. 



T. Wayland Vaughan: Coral reefs and reef corals of the southeastern United States, their 

 geologic history and significance. Bulletin Geological Society of America, 

 vol. 26, pp. 58-60; Science, vol. 41, pp. 508-509, 1915. 



This year the yellow-metal sheathing of the yacht Anton Dohrn was 

 renewed and a funnel was constructed to serve as a ventilator for the 

 engine-room ; also a new engine was placed in the Henderson, thus ren- 

 dering this launch as speed}' as the Velella. Mr. John Mills, who had 

 immediate charge of these installations and improvements, performed 

 the work in a very commendable manner, and it is a pleasure to express 

 the Department's appreciation not only of his services but those of 



