26 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
was taken along and found very useful. It was practically out 
of the question to have aquaria with a constant supply of run- 
ning water without expenditure of more time and labor than 
we thought worth while. Negro labor was cheap and we came 
to rely on this to carry: the fresh sea-water in buckets for the 
aquaria when specimens were to be kept alive. 
A box of books selected from the zoological library was an 
indispensable adjunct to our laboratory. Of course a number 
of particularly desirable volumes were not included, and we 
were impressed with the fact that a more deliberate study of our 
wants in this direction would have yielded better results. I 
suppose this would have been the case, however, even if we had 
been more careful in our choice of literature. 
Taken as a whole these committees did excellent work and 
made it possible so to divide the labor of preparation as greatly 
to reduce the important omissions and materially increase the 
efficiency of our outfit. 
Several matters of importance did not seem to fall within the 
_ province of either committee, and the director tried to attend to 
such items. For instance, a medicine chest was prepared under 
the direction of Dr. C. P. Howard, the contents of which met all 
demands, which fortunately were few; and Dean Breene of 
the College of Dentistry furnished us with a very compact and 
well selected dental kit. 
A letter from the Colonial authorities at Barbados suggested 
that it would be well to send someone in advance of the party to 
get our quarters ready for occupancy. This very important 
duty was kindly accepted by Professor Walter K. Fisher of 
Stanford University, who represented that University and also 
the California Academy of Science on our expedition. He had 
been associated with the writer as civilian naturalist on the 
Hawaiian eruise of the ‘‘Albatross’’ in 1902 and was heartily 
welcomed by us all. He sailed two weeks in advance of us and 
was accompanied by my son, Willis Nutting. 
But the most perplexing and at times exasperating experience 
in the preparatory stages of our undertaking was the meeting 
of the new and complex regulations regarding passports and se- 
curing a war-trade license necessary to taking our equipment 
out of the country. Indeed, it seemed to me that if the Germans 
