LABORATORY AT N AH ANT, 549 



you seek in vain among terrestrial forms for 

 terms of comparison, and are tempted to say 

 that nature has done her finest work in the 

 sea rather than on land. Sometimes hun- 

 dreds of these smaller medusae might be seen 

 floating together in the deep glass bowls, or 

 jars, or larger vessels with which Agassiz's 

 laboratory at Nahant was furnished. When 

 the supply was exhausted, new specimens were 

 easily to be obtained by a row in a dory a 

 mile or two from shore, either in the hot, still 

 noon, when the jelly-fish rise toward the sur- 

 face, or at night, over a brilliantly phosphores- 

 cent sea, when they are sure to be abundant, 

 since they themselves furnish much of the 

 phosphorescence. In these Httle excursions, 

 many new and interesting things came to his 

 nets beside those he was seeking. The fisher- 

 men, also, were his friends and coadjutors. 

 They never failed to bring him whatever of 

 rare or curious fell into their hands, sometimes 

 even turning aside from their professional call- 

 ing to give the laboratory preference over the 

 market. 



Neither was his summer work necessarily 

 suspended during winter, his Cambridge and 

 Nahant homes being only about fifteen miles 

 distant from ^ach other. He writes to his 



