7 I OUT OF THE LAB £k. 165 



MBL Club involves a good deal of learning the words as well as the notes. No 

 longer do groups join in entliusiastic chorus to sing to the tune of "Tipperary": 



A fish-like thing appeared among the Annelids one day. 

 It hadn't any parapods or setae to display. 

 It hadn t any eyes or jaws or central nervous cord 

 But it had a lot of gill slits and it had a notochord! 



It's a long wayfi'om Amphiox^us 



It's a long way to us. 



It's a long wayfi^om Amphio^us 



To the meanest human cuss 



It's good-bye fins and gill slits, 



Welcome skin and hair 



It's a long wayfi'om Amphio^us 



But we camefi^oni there. 



My notochord shall grow into a chain of vertebrae 



As fins my nietapleural folds shall agitate the sea, 



This tiny dorsal nervous tube shall form a mighty brain 



AND THE VERTEBRATES SHALL DOMINATE THE ANIMAL DOMAIN. 



Students remember such songs from the MBL, but also from other places, 

 as the MBL community took its lessons elsewhere. One former student 

 recalls studying biology at Harvard from Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 director Alfred Romer. He came in, sat on the desk, and sang the whole 

 song, with its various verses, about the long rise of vertebrates from tlie 

 lowly Amphioxus. It worked; many years later she still remembers the lesson. 

 Another favorite went to the tune of "Sweet Marie"; 



It's a question to my mind, sweet Marie, 



What in annelids you find, sweet Marie, 



Can you number and confinn all the segments of a worm? 



Do you know the mesoderm, sweet Marie? 



Chorus: Sweet Marie, look and see, 



Look and see, sweet Marie, 



Tell nw what without the lens you can see. 



Do you think you d better try 



With your own unaided eye 



To distinguish nuclei, sweet Marie? etc. 



