NA TURE 



[October 7, iqoq 



a hobby which broug-ht him into close personal friend- 

 ship with similar enthusiasts in Italy, Spain, England, 

 and France, whom he visited from time to time. He 

 enjoyed an ample income from a sugar-refining busi- 

 ness in Stettin, where he resided, and was anxious 

 that Anton should accept the post of director of the 

 Maiiiburg Zoological Garden, marry, and settle down 

 there. But when I knew him at Jena, Anton had 

 already made up his mind to do something really large 

 and important for the progress of zoological science. 

 Like others who had visited the Mediterranean in 

 order to studv its rich marine life, he had felt the 

 difficulty of carrying on such work in lodgings, with- 

 out apparatus, without library, and at the mercy of 

 the fishermen whom it was necessary to employ and 

 to conciliate. The French naturalist Coste had, 

 when employed by the Government of the .Second 

 Empire to studv economic questions connected with 

 the national fisheries, established a laboratory, w-ith 

 aquaria, tanks, and fishing-boats, at Concarneau, on 

 the Brittany coast. Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers had 

 also arranged a permanent marine biological labora- 

 tory for himself and his pupils. The plan took shape 

 in .Anton Dohrn's mind of establishing a larger and 

 more completelv equipped laboratory than these on the 

 Mediterranean coast, and, but for the war between 

 France and Germany, he would probably have carried 

 out his first intention and placed his laboratory on 

 the coast near Marseilles. When I knew him he had 

 already thought out the scheme which he realised, and 

 had determined to try to secure a site at Naples in the 

 Villa Reale, which stretches along the shore. He had 

 succeeded with no little difficulty in securing a certain 

 sum of monev from his father — his heritage, in fact — 

 and he intended deliberately to risk this in his enter- 

 prise. His plan was to secure the cooperation of all 

 European universities in building and maintaining the 

 Naples laboratory, or " station," as he proposed to call 

 it. This meant, in all cases but that of England, the 

 cooperation of the .State Governinents. But in order 

 to obtain this support and cooperation he realised 

 that it was necessary, at whatever effort and 

 risk, to make a plunge — to start the " stazione," 

 to erect a fine and imposing building, to 

 demonstrate the convenience and excellence of 

 its organisation, and thus to secure approval 

 and unhesitating financial assistance. His plan was 

 to sink his own fortune in that first step, and he did 

 so. He obtained help from friends both at home and 

 in this country as the building grew, and by tactful 

 appeal and untiring effort — involving years of work 

 given up to persuading statesmen, politicians, associa- 

 tions, professors, millionaires, and emperors of the 

 value and importance of the great Naples " Stazione 

 Zoologica " — he achieved for it a splendid and per- 

 manent position. 



During the two months which I passed in 1S71 at 

 Jena, Dohrn, Kleinenberg, .\bbe, and I used to dine 

 in Dohrn's studv, our meal being sent in from the 

 Black Bear Hotel. We were usually joined by 

 Willie Preyer, the professor of physiology, in our 

 after-dinner walk in the " Paradise," which resembled 

 Christ Church meadow on a smaller scale. I attended 

 Gegenbaur's lectures, and was kindly given a place by 

 Haeckel in his laboratory, where I was one day visited 

 by the Grand Duke of .Saxe- Weimar, who told me 

 that he was a cousin of my Queen, and kissed Haeckel 

 on both cheeks, much to my astonishment. I was 

 working at the embryology of Mollusca, and especially 

 at that of Pisidium, a minute bivalve, the haunt of 

 which Kleinenberg showed to me. He himself was 

 [ireparing his celebrated work on Hydra. Abb(5 

 was experimenting and applying mathematical know- 

 ledge in the nntical workshop of Zeiss, which led later 

 to the splendid result which all the world knows. 

 NO. 2084, VOL. 81] 



Those delightful men, with the exception of the veteran 

 Haeckel, are all dead now. Haeckel remains not only 

 alive and active, but faithful to Jena. In those days 

 Jena was a singularly beautiful place. The nearest 

 railway station was at a distance of seven miles. It 

 was a very small town. I had a room overlooking the 

 " Prinzessen-garten," and was kept awake by the 

 nightingales. Dohrn and I took long walks in the 

 wooded hills of the Thuringer \\ald, and I learnt and 

 di.scussed fully with Dohrn his plans for the Naples 

 " station." He adopted the name " station " because 

 he hoped that, in the course of time, other thoroughly 

 equipped marine zoological laboratories would be set 

 up elsewhere on the same sort of international coopera. 

 tive basis as that which he intended to adopt at Naples 

 Port Jackson was one point which we selected for a 

 future station, and some favoured spot on the Japanese 

 coast another. .Mready, before we left Jena, and 

 before he had opened any negotiations with the 

 Neapolitan municipality, Dohrn had planned the series 

 of monographs of the fauna and flora of the Gulf of 

 Naples which has been so splendidly realised. Dohrn 

 was a profound student of Goethe, and had a saying' 

 of the great teacher for every occasion. He was what 

 appeared to me, with my English upbringing, sin- 

 gularly introspective, and he puzzled, even occasionally 

 alarmed, me by his self-conscious and systematic culti- 

 vation of his will-power. I have no doubt that he was 

 fully endowed with this power, as his remarkable 

 accomplishment of what he set out to do proves, and 

 I do not suppose his anxiety to keep it at a high pitch 

 of activity was really of any effect in the end. \Vhen 

 we were at Jena he did not smoke and drank very 

 little. It was not, I think, until he was past forty 

 that he took to tobacco. I left him at the end of June, 

 1S71, promising to join him at Naples in October. He 

 arrang'ed to take an unfurnished flat in the Palazzo 

 Torlonia, where we were to have ample space, and to 

 take down with him plans for the projected laboratory, 

 and an architect. \\'hilst he negotiated with the 

 municipality and the Itidian Government, I was to set 

 up a temporary laboratory in our flat and pursue 

 embryologicfil work. This plan was carried out. 

 Dohrn had succeeded in obtaining the definite and 

 effective support of the new German Imperial Govern- 

 ment, and his path with the Naples municipaliiv was 

 smoothed. But there was a good deal of haggling 

 and putting forw.-ird of the palm of the hand (which 

 Dohrn ignored) before the site to be occupied by the 

 " Stazione " in the ^'illa Reale (or Nazionale, as it is 

 now called) was made over, with many queer and 

 strenuous conditions, to Dohrn, and so to the building 

 contractor. \\'hen I left Naples in May, 1S72, after 

 an attack of typhoid fever, the walls of the laboratory 

 were a couple of feet above ground. .An example of 

 the innumerable difficulties which Dohrn had to sur- 

 mount is the challenge to a duel brought to him by 

 the representative of the Neapolitan architect whom 

 he had agreed (in order to conciliate the Neapolitans) 

 to employ for the design of the elevation. This gentle- 

 man considered himself insulted because Dohrn 

 refused to promise him a ten per cent, commission 

 instead of the five per cent, which is usual in northern 

 Europe. I had to act as Dohrn's second, and con- 

 ferred with the Neapolitan architect's friend. On my 

 insisting that Dohrn was a soldier of the German 

 Emperor, and a very deadly man with the sabre — and 

 determined not to yield to any nonsense — the challenge 

 was withdrawn, and the insulted architect completed 

 his task very satisfactorily. On another occasion, in 

 my presence, Dohrn was deliberately threatened with 

 assassination bv a Neapolitan who could not get his 

 own way. " You forget," the Neapolitan said, " that 

 the night is dark and that for a few francs I can get 

 a couple of men to deal with you." Another very 



