4 Natukal HisrcjRN Bui.lkti.n, 



Teachers of zoologx have found themselves almost bewil- 

 dered bv the demolition of old classifications and tiie erecting 

 of new ones, often as incomprehensible to them as primeval 

 chaos. The original material collected b}' these expeditions 

 was placed, very properly, in the hands of the most noted 

 specialists in the various groups, and the scientific laity was 

 forced to be content with an exceedingly misty idea of these 

 multitudinous forms which have so thoroughly disturbed old- 

 fashioned classifications. • The splendid monographs constitut- 

 ing the -'Challenger'' Reports are too expensive to be attain- 

 able save by the favored few, and so the average teacher of 

 zoologv has been forced to content himself with placing 

 before his unfortunate pupils a succession of rearrangements 

 of zoological classifications, of which he himself can secure no 

 rational basis for comprehension. 



Aside from the insects, by far the greater part of the 

 animal life of the globe is marine. Several of the great sub- 

 kingdoms are almost exclusively inhabitants of salt water. 

 The investigations carried on of late years in the deep sea 

 have probably more than doubled the number of known 

 marine species. It will thus be evident th:U all but a ver\- few 

 naturalists and teachers of zoolog}' have been deprived of the 

 opportunity of studying perhaps half of the forms a knowl- 

 edge of which is necessary to any broad understanding of 

 the subject ot marine invertebrates. 



When we come to consider the case of students in our 

 colleges and universities, the possibilities of their understand- 

 ing the relationships of marine animals seems remote indeed, 

 as under no circumstances, except at Harvard. Johns Hopkins 

 and a few other eastern institutions, have they access to any 

 considerable number of deep-water forms of life, and onl\- in 

 isolated cases are they permitted to stud\- these animals when 

 fresh from their native depths. 



It was such considerations as the above that ga\e the 

 original impulse to the plan which culminated in the Bahama 

 Biological Expedition from the State University of Iowa. 

 Western institutions are particularly hampered in their 

 attempts to impart zoological knowledge h\ the remoteness of 



