INTRODUCTION 



The establishment of the Tropical Research station in 

 British Guiana by the New York Zoological Society marks 

 the beginning of a wholly new type of biological work, capa- 

 ble of literally illimitable expansion. It provides for inten- 

 sive study, in the open field, of the teeming animal life of 

 the tropics. 



One pleasant feature of the station is the cordial hos- 

 pitality it extends to all naturalists. Jealousy ! is regarded 

 as utterly unworthy, and the whole effort of the station is 

 to secure, from whatever source, the most thorough research 

 possible. Every original investigator fit to work in the field 

 is sure of an eager welcome and of all possible aid in his 

 studies. 



The time has passed when we can afford to accept as 

 satisfactory a science of animal life whose professors are 

 either mere roaming field collectors or mere closet cata- 

 logue writers who examine arid record minute differences 

 in "specimens" precisely as philatelists examine and record 

 minute differences in postage stamps and with about the 

 same breadth of view and power of insight into the essen- 

 tial. Little is to be gained by that kind of "intensive" col- 

 lecting and cataloguing which bears fruit only in innumer- 

 able little pamphlets describing with meticulous care un- 

 important new subspecies, or new "species" hardly to be 

 distinguished from those already long known. Such pamph- 

 lets have almost no real interest except for the infrequent 

 rival specialists who read them with quarrelsome interest. 



Of course a good deal can still be done by the collector 

 who covers a wide field, if in addition to being a collector 

 he is a good field naturalist and a close and intelligent ob- 

 server; and there must be careful laboratory study of series 

 of specimens of all kinds. But the stage has now been 

 reached when not only life histories, but even taxonomic 



