256 KEPOET— 1886. 



physiological laboratory now in course of construction, and I look forward 

 to considerable eiFort being needed to secure adequate annual sums for 

 working it. It would take more than double the amount of money to 

 create the same facilities for physiological research at any other seaside 

 place, and a much greater annual outlay to carry it to the perfection 

 which may be readily attained by the establishment of this new physio- 

 logical laboratory as part of the already extensive Naples Zoological 

 Station. 



' In stating that the proposed Marine Laboratory at Plymouth did not 

 cause the diminution of the grant for the Naples Station, the Committee 

 seems to place itself on the same principle which I am advocating, viz., 

 that whatever may be the advantages of a greater number of local zoo- 

 logical stations, they can hardly supersede the importance of having 

 access to the greatest and most effective establishment of the kind ; and 

 by giving that access to British naturalists also secure the welfare and 

 ever-increasing efficiency of this central biological institution, which to 

 conduct to its highest level will always remain the chief duty of 



' Tours sincerely, 



' Prof. Dr. Anton Dohrn. 

 ' W. Percy Sladen, Esq., 



* Secretary to the Committee of the British Association' 



Your Committee beg to direct the attention of the Council to the 

 liberal manner in which Professor Dohrn has assisted them by generously 

 placing at their disposal the resources of the station as unreservedly as if 

 a table had been hired in the usual way and the customary contribution 

 had been paid. 



Your Committee trust that the Council will not again leave them with 

 a sum insufficient for the hire of the Naples table, and desire to state that 

 they would not be able again to propose such terms to Professor Dohrn 

 as they have done this year. 



The Committee would suggest that all sums granted by the Association 

 for the prosecution of marine biology should be assigned in the first in- 

 stance to the present Committee, and voted in one sum. And they would 

 propose now a grant of 200Z., of which lOOZ. should be appropriated for 

 the hire of a table in the Zoological Station at Naples, and lOOZ. for the 

 Plymouth laboratory of the Marine Biological Association. 



The General Collections. — The extensive series of marine organisms 

 collected by officers of the Italian navy, mentioned in the last Report, 

 have been placed in the hands of specialists for investigation. The 

 distribution of the collections was undertaken by a Committee appointed 

 by the R. Accademia dei Lincei of Rome, by whom the material has 

 been confided to about sixty naturalists in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, 

 England, Holland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Switzerland. 

 Very few specimens now remain undistributed. The Committee placed 

 no restrictions of any kind upon the use of the material, requesting only 

 the return of specimens not needed for investigation. 



The Publications of the Station. — The progress of the various woi-ks 

 undertaken by the station is here summarised : — 



(1) Of the ' Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel ' the following- 

 monograph has been published since the last Report : — XIII. Elarl Brandt, 

 Koloniebildende Radiolarien {Sphcerozo'ea) (276 pp., 9 plates). 



