BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AT NAPLES 



One of these, entitled Mittheilungen aus der Zoolog- 

 ische Station zu Neapel, permits the author to take his 

 choice among four languages German, English, 

 French, or Italian. It is issued intermittently, as oc- 

 casion requires. The second set of publications con- 

 sists of ponderous monographs upon the fauna and 

 flora of the Gulf of Naples. These are beautifully 

 illustrated in color, and sometimes a single volume 

 costs as much as seventeen thousand dollars to issue. 

 Of course only a fraction of that sum is ever recovered 

 through sale of the book. The third publication, 

 called Zoologischen Jahresbericht, is a valuable resume 

 of biological literature of all languages, keeping the 

 worker at the laboratory in touch with the discoveries 

 of investigators elsewhere. 



The latter end is attained further by the library of 

 the institution, which is supplied with all the periodi- 

 cals of interest to the biologist and with a fine assort- 

 ment of technical books. The library - room, aside 

 from its printed contents, is of interest because of its 

 appropriate mural decorations, and because of the 

 bronze portrait busts of the two patron saints of the 

 institution, Von Baer and Darwin, which look down in- 

 spiringly upon the reader. 



All in all, then, it would be hard to find a deficiency 

 in the Stazione Zoologica as an instrument of biological 

 discovery. A long list might be cited of the revela- 

 tions first brought to light within its walls. And yet, 

 as it seems to me, the greatest value of this institution 

 as an educational factor in science as a biological 

 lever of progress does not depend so much upon the 

 tangible revelations of fact that have come out of its 



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