398 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



to the buildings and fish-cultural ponds. It has previouslj' been shown how, in the 

 location of reservoir and low and high pressure cisterns, advantage has been taken of 

 the grades to obviate the pumping of any water higher than is necessary for the desired 

 head and thus to provide for minimizing the perpetual cost of operation. 



A word should be said as to the unusual natural beauty of the location. The par- 

 ticularly graceful outline of the hillside gives an effective background for the main 

 building as viewed from the river or the railway, while its heights offer vantage points 

 for the survey of the entire station. In the architectural and engineering features of 

 the station proper, consideration has been given to simplification and to harmonizing 

 of design with reference to the natural endowment. Much of the attractiveness of the 

 station and much of the congeniality of the laboratoiy for persevering and enthusiastic 

 labors is fairly attributed to the inspiriting influence of the appropriate natural sur- 

 roundings. 



BIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT. 



In fisheries or in biology, studies in a laboratory can only be supplemental to those 

 based upon outdoor nature. A true biological station must be larger out of doors than 

 indoors. While, therefore, a full report could properly be written upon the subject of 

 the environment, it is beside our intention in this place to offer more than the mention 

 of some general features of the surroundings which will suggest the nature of the habi- 

 tats available for study. 



It is manifest that the assembly of fish-cultural ponds, supplied originally with water 

 from the Mississippi but permitted to develop essentially pond conditions, stocked with 

 abundant aquatic vegetation and rich in entomostraca, insect adults and larvse, together 

 with the customary variety of smaller animal forms that thrive on the bottom, amidst 

 the vegetation or in free-swimming condition, offer favorable opportunities for biological 

 and physical studies bearing upon problems of fish food, as well as for investigations of 

 more particular scientific interest. 



The river with its willow-Uned shores, its variety of sandy bars, gravel and mud 

 bottoms, deeper channels, and quiet eddies below the wing dams, presents many favorable 

 conditions for investigations where collecting may be done by hand, by dredge, by nets, 

 or by seines. Fishes of many species, turtles, mussels, Necturus, etc., are not only near 

 at hand, but are taken daily in course of the routine collecting of the station. 



Just across the river are the islands and lowlands of Illinois, where distinctive con- 

 ditions are found amid the intricate slues and in the ordinarily isolated overflow ponds 

 that form the favored breeding grounds of some species of important fishes. 



Botanists find a rare interest in certain striking habitats within a couple of miles 

 of the laboratory, such as Wyoming Hill, Wild Cats' Den, and, on the Illinois side, 

 '■'Turtle Slide" and "The Grottoes." Especially The Grottoes and Wild Cats' Den are 

 of a character unique for the geographic region, displaying striking plant associations 

 and presenting opportunities for examination of trees and plants of great rarity for the 

 territory, some of which are growing in luxuriant natural abundance. 



At some distance from the station, and yet reached by a day's journey by steam- 

 boat, by launch, or by rail, is the newly formed Lake Cooper above the dam at Keokuk 

 and Hamilton. Here, as pointed out in a previous report," are unexampled opportunities 



" Coker. Robert E. ; Water-power development in relation to fish and mussels of the Mississippi. U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, 

 document S05. 1913. 



