BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AT NAPLES 



variously modified for each case, make up the work of 

 the laboratory student of general biology. And just 

 in proportion as the experiments are logically planned 

 and carefully executed will the results be valuable, 

 even though they be but negative. Just in proportion 

 as the worker, by inclusion and exclusion, attains au- 

 thentic results results that will bear the test of repe- 

 tition does his reputation as a dependable working 

 biologist become established. 



The subjects attacked in the marine laboratory first 

 and last are practically coextensive with the range 

 of general biology, bacteriology excepted. Naturally 

 enough, the life histories of marine forms of animals 

 and plants have come in for a full share of attention. 

 But, as I have already intimated, this zoological work 

 forms only a small part of the investigations under- 

 taken here, for in the main the workers prefer to at- 

 tack those general biological problems which in their 

 broader outlines apply to all forms of living beings, 

 from highest to lowest. For example, Dr. Driesch, 

 the well-known Leipzig biologist, spends several months 

 of each year at the laboratory, and has made here most 

 of those studies of cell activities with which his name 

 is associated. The past season he has studied an in- 

 teresting and important problem of heredity, endeavor- 

 ing to ascertain the respective shares of the male .and 

 female parents in the development of the offspring. 

 The subjects of his experiments have been various 

 species of sea-urchins, but the principles discovered 

 will doubtless be found to apply to most, or perhaps 

 all, forms of vertebrate life as well. 



While these studies were under way another devel- 



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