NATURE 
453 
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1883 
THE ZOOLOGICAL STATION IN NAPLES 
HERE are few of those interested in biological 
studies who are not more or less familiar with the 
history and character of the great international laboratory 
on the shore of the Bay of Naples, which has had so 
profound an influence on the progress of zoology in the 
last nine years; scarcely a volume belonging to recent 
zoological literature, British or foreign, can be taken up, 
but the acknowledgment of indebtedness to the resources 
of the Naples station comes under the eye ; the publica- 
tions of the station are on the shelves of most scientific 
libraries ; and many accounts of its organisation have 
appeared from time to time in scientific periodicals and 
even in the daily press. But the institution is much too 
interesting a topic of discussion to be easily exhausted ; 
it is constantly developing and exhibiting new stages of 
existence. There is soon to be added a new department 
that of comparative physiology, the work of which will be 
carried on in a separate laboratory ; and on the eve of an 
expansion so considerable, it is natural to reflect on the 
work the station has already accomplished, its present 
state of activity, and the probabilities of its future. 
In no branch of zoological science has such rapid and 
important progress been made in recent years as in 
embryology, and the investigations into the development 
of marine forms of all classes by which this progress has 
been chiefly effected, have been in great part the result of 
the special facilities which the resources of the Naples 
station offer for this kind of research. The brilliant 
career of the lamented Francis Balfour was begun while 
he occupied, on the opening of the station in 1874, 
the table rented by Cambridge University. His stay on 
this occasion lasted from February to June, and re- 
sulted in the publication of his first paper, “On the 
Development of Elasmobranchs,” in the Qvzarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science. The material for 
the researches which he continued to carry on at Cam- 
bridge on his return was sent from the station. In 1875 
he again spent some months at Naples, and again 
published the results of his workin the same Quarterly 
Journal, this time under the title “‘ A Comparison of the 
Early Stages in the Development of Vertebrates.” The 
following year he did not visit the station, but in 1877 he 
investigated there the spinal nerves of Amphioxus, and 
added to his work on Elasmobranchian embryology. 
These studies appeared in the Journal of Anatomy and 
Physiology, vols. x. and xi. In the preface to his 
“Monograph on the Development of Elasmobranchs,”’ 
which, published in 1878, was at once recognised by all 
biologists as a classical work, Balfour gratefully acknow- 
ledges how much his researches owed to the resources 
of the zoological station and the support of its ersonnel. 
It is unnecessary to dilate here on the importance of 
Balfour's work ; the significance of the discoveries which 
he made, such as the openings of the renal organs into 
the body cavity in Selachians as in Annelids, the epiblastic 
origin of the sympathetic system, the history of the blas- 
topore in vertebrates, and its relation to the medullary 
canal, the head cavities, &c., and the masterly way in 
which he applied the results of his observations to the 
Vo L. XXVII.—NO. 698 
solution of the great problems of vertebrate morphology, 
have given him a place among those whose names mark 
epochs in the progress of science. 
Another English name connected with work in the 
field of vertebraie embryology which does honour to the 
Naples station is that of Mr. Milnes Marshall, who has 
More than once occupied the British Association table. 
Much of our knowledge of the development of Salpa, the 
excentric relation of the vertebrates, is due to the work in 
the station of Professors Salensky and Todaro. 
Molluscan embryology has benefited by the existence 
of the station through the work of Prof. Lankester and 
the Russian embryologist, Dr. Bobretzky. The former 
carried on researches in the laboratory in the spring of 
1874, and obtained many of the important results which 
are embodied in his memoir “On the Development of 
Cephalopoda”? (Quart. Journ. Mic. Sci. vol. xv.), and his 
paper “ On the Development of Mollusca” (Phz/. Trans. 
1875). Dr. Bobretzky of Kiev occupied the Russian 
table in 1874, and applied the methods of technical his- 
tology to the study of the ova of various Gasteropods, 
Nassa, Fusus, &c., and of Loligo and other Cephalopods. 
His Russian memoir on the latter (Moscow, 1877) con- 
tains the most complete and reliable series of figures we 
have of the anatomy of Cephalopod embryos. 
In the embryology of sponges, Prof. Oscar Schmidt of 
Strassburg has published the results of important re- 
searches carried on in the station in the years 1875 and 
1877. Prof. Selenka of Erlangen worked out the develop- 
ment of various Holothuria at the Bavarian table in 1875, 
and of Echinidz in 1879. The work of Dr. Carpenter on 
the development of Antedon (Proc. Roy. Soc. 1876) was 
done at the British Association table, and the contribu. 
tions of Dr. Goette to the same subject are based on 
studies made in the station in 1875. One of the best 
known of recent studies in development which have pro- 
ceeded from the station is that of Dr. Spengel, on 
Bonellia, published in 1879. 
Leaving works of a strictly embryological character, we 
will mention some of the principal contributions to 
general morphology, which have taken their origin in the 
station. Prof. Grenacher’s great work on the eyes of 
Arthropods, which forms one of the chief recent additions 
to our knowledge of the class, is based on researches 
begun at the Mecklenburg table in 1876. Dr. Hubrecht’s 
researches on Nemertines were carried out at the Dutch 
table. The contributions to and confusions of Molluscan 
morphology, which we owe to Von Jhering, proceeded 
from work done in the station, and both are not without 
value in the progress towards truth. Dr. Spengel’s im- 
portant paper on the “ Geruchsorgan der Mollusken”’ 
(Zettschr. f. wiss. Zool. Bot. xxxv.), was produced while 
he was a member of the staff of the institution. The 
remarkable volume of the brothers Hertwig, ‘‘ Die 
Actinien,”’ describing a nervous system still existing in 
the primitive condition, was the result of an occupation 
of two of the German tables. 
The honour of the discovery of Symbiosis in animals 
is shared by two zoologists, who both carried out their 
researches in the station, Mr. Geddes and Dr. Brandt ; 
and the studies which the latter is still carrying on there 
have resulted in many other contributions to our know- 
ledge of the Radiolarians. 
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