234 REPORT—1883. 
past year has been that which was undertaken by Professor Schafer, on - 
the perivisceral fluid of echinus, published in the ‘ Proceedings of the | 
. Royal Society.’ 
_ Arrangements haye now been made for the prosecution of several 
interesting lines of research, and there is no doubt that next year, should 
the British Association continue its pecuniary aid to the institution, a 
more satisfactory report will be issued. 
Report of the Conmnvittee, consisting of Professor Ray LANKESTER, 
Professor NEWTON, Professor HuxLey, Mr. P. L. ScLaTEr, Pro- 
fessor ALLMAN, Professor M. Foster, Mr. A. SEDGWICK, and Mr. 
PERCY SLADEN (Secretary), appointed for the purpose of arrang- 
ing for the occupation of a Table at the Zoological Station at 
Naples. 
Your Committee, in submitting their Report on the Zoological Station 
-at Naples, have again the pleasure of drawing attention to the steady 
progress and continued prosperity of this excellently managed institution. 
That no diminution has taken place in its popularity amongst naturalists 
is fully proved by the fact that a greater number have worked at the 
station during the past twelve months than in any previous year. Since 
the presentation of the last report two additional tables have been engaged ; 
America, represented by the Willams College, Massachusetts, having 
secured a permanent place by contract for several years; whilst Belginm 
has taken a second table for a year, specially for the prosecution of 
botanical investigations. 
The Laboratory.— Amongst recent acquisitions in this department may 
‘specially be mentioned a large aérating apparatus capable of supplying 
about seventy small tanks and breeding aquaria simultaneously; an 
-adjunct which has already proved of great value in embryological and 
developmental investigations. The equipment of the tables keeps pace as 
heretofore with the requirements of the improved methods of scientific 
research. Several important improvements in this direction have been 
made by members of the staff of the station, as, for example, the already 
popular mode of manipulating serial sections detailed by Dr. Giesbrecht 
in the ‘ Zoologischer Anzeiger ’ for 1881, and more recently the improve- 
ment of Jung’s microtome, described in the last part of the ‘ Mittheilungen’ 
-of the station. 
The Collecting Department.—This department has received an important 
adjunct in the acquisition of a second steamboat. The large original 
‘steam yacht is still employed, as formerly, for dredging and for more 
extended excursions, whilst the new and smaller steamboat is admirably 
suited for the purpose of visiting the boats of fishermen in the bay who - 
are willing to collect specimens for the station on their own account, . 
Fishermen employed in this way receive from the station the necessary . 
-glass or other vessels in which to preserve, until fetched away by the 
steamer, whatever they may capture likely to prove interesting to zoolo-. 
EE EEE 
