180 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



guarantee the collection and preservation of scientific data that would be of incal- 

 ( -ul able value to the fisherman as well as to the dealer. 



It is a fact that at present there is not a single institution along our entire coast 

 where one can observe the habits of our marine animals uninterruptedly throughout 

 the year. There is no place where our biologists may go for a few weeks during the 

 winter or early spring, when the ocean is teeming with animal life. The summer 

 months are as the autumn to marine forms, and he who would study ocean life at its 

 best must work in the early spring. The organization or individual that accomplishes 

 the establishment of a permanent institution where instruction in practical fish-culture 

 and fishery economics can be given ; where apparatus is provided for the investigation 

 of the lakes, rivers, and sea; where naturalists from our universities and commission- 

 ers from our States will be welcome at all times of the year, and where problems of 

 scientific and economic interest can be studied and solved, will obtain what Baird, 

 Goode, and Ryder saw in the distant future, and will combine and control the purely 

 practical and the purely scientific. The need of American biology to day is the same 

 as the need of successful fish culture coordination, cooperation, and the establish- 

 ment of a station, or the devotion of a station already established, like that at Woods 

 Hole, to instruction and to extended uninterrupted scientific research. 



PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. 



