persons was not definitely established. In 1888 John A. Ryder was 

 in charge of the laboratory with 23 biologists in attendance. In the 

 spring of the following year, H. V. Wilson was appointed "resident 

 naturalist" and remained in this position until the summer of 1892. 

 The number of investigators in this period varied between 12 and 16. 

 Henry Van Peters Wilson (fig. 23) was a man of dynamic per- 

 sonality. In a biographical sketch published by D. P. Costello 

 (1961) Wilson is described as a small man, 5 feet 6-1/2 inches tall 

 and never weighing more than 120 pounds, with piercing blue eyes. 

 "He was not a man lightly to tolerate fools among his colleagues, 

 assistants or students. He expected efficiency approaching perfec- 

 tionin others as well as in himself, and worked with tireless energy 

 to attempt to achieve this end. " Unfortunately, the records of the 

 Bureau of Fisheries contain no personal notes, letters, or other 

 materials which would indicate his attitude toward his assistants 

 and personnel of the Woods Hole Laboratory. During the first year 

 at Woods Hole he devoted himself to the study of embryology of the 

 sea bass. He described the development of the sea bass egg from 

 fertilization to the free -swimming larva, about 160 hours old 

 (Wilson, 1889). It is a classic contribution to fish embryology 

 which has not lost its usefulness to the present day, and remains 

 one of the* chief reference books for students and researchers en- 

 gaged in embryological investigations. Another valuable contri- 

 bution by Wilson was the important discovery of regeneration of 

 sponges from dissociated tissue cells. Wilson's interest in the 

 structure, development, and taxonomy of sponges began in 1890. 

 In 1891 he resigned from the Bureau of Fisheries and joined the 

 faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N. C. , 

 but he continued to work on the sponges collected during the 

 Albatross expedition off the west coast of Mexico and those coUect- 

 ed by the Fish Hawk in the vicinity of Puerto Rico. He induced the 

 Bureau of Fisheries to establish a biological laboratory at Beaufort, 

 N. C. , where he completed his detailed study of the development of 

 sponges from dissociated tissue cells. Wilson's report on sponges 

 (Wilson, 1912) opened a new approach to the problem of regenera- 

 tion and initiated many investigations conducted in American labora- 

 tories and abroad. Interest in the problem was revived in 1921-24 

 by experimental work conducted by P. S. Galtsoff, first at the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory and later at the Bureau of Fisheries 

 Laboratory at Woods Hole (Galtsoff, 1925). 



At the time of H. V. Wilson's separation from the Bureau 

 of Fisheries in 1891, the work of the Fishery Laboratory at Woods 

 Hole assumed a distinct pattern. One of the biologists of the Bureau 

 was assigned to Woods Hole "in charge of the Laboratory", or some 

 outstanding zoologist outside of the Government service received a 

 temporary appointment as "summer director". From time to 

 time one or several biologists of the Bureau used the facilities of 

 the Woods Hole Station for work on special problems related to 



55 



