ON THE ZOOLOGICAL STATION AT NAPLES. 79 



(3) Of the ' Zoologisclier Jahresbericht ' for 1885 Parts II. and III. 

 are published. The remainder will be out shortly. 



Extracts from the General Eeport of the Zoological Station. — The officers 

 of the Station have courteously furnished lists (1) of the naturalists 

 who have occupied tables since the last report, (2) of the works published 

 during 1886 by naturalists who have worked at the Zoological Station, 

 (3) of the specimeus sent out by the Station during the past year. These 

 details show an increase in the number of naturalists who have worked 

 at the Station, and in the total value of the specimens distributed, as 

 compared with the previous year. 



I. Report on the Occupation of the Table, by Mr. John Gardiner. 



The Committee of the British Association having kindly granted me 

 the use of their table at the Naples Zoological Station for the year 1887, 

 I arrived at Naples on February 1. For the first two months my work 

 was much hindered, partly by frequent iudisposition, due to the very in- 

 clement weatlier, partlj^ by delay in the ai-rival of my microscope, &c. 

 During this time I occupied myself mainly in familiarising myself with 

 the algal flora of the gulf, in which work I was much aided by the her- 

 barium made by Dr. G. Bei'thold, and by Sig. Lo Bianco, the conservator 

 of the Station. 



The first research I made was suggested to me by a fellow botanist at 

 the Station, who pointed out to me the surprising statements made by 

 Berthold in his monograph on the Bangiacece, as to their resistance to dry- 

 ing and to the action of various reagents. I thought the statements were 

 worth testing, and accordingly repeated Berthold's experiments, with 

 others of my own, upon Bangia fusco-purpurea and Forjihyra leucosticta. 

 My results, except with regard to drying, are entirely at variance with 

 Berthold's. He says that in fibres of Bangia kept in concentrated glyce- 

 rine for several months many cells still remained alive, and considers 

 it probable that the cells in some preparations made three years before 

 were still alive. I made experiments with thoroughly dried material, and 

 with material from which only the superfluous moisture had been re- 

 moved, immersiug it in concentrated glycerine in a watch-glass. In 

 various periods, from a few minutes to an hour, the fibres assumed a 

 bright reddish-brown colour when seen asainst a black surface, and under 

 the microscope all the cells were found to be much contracted, and 

 reddish-brown by reflected, green by transmitted, light. On washing and 

 returning to sea-water no change was visible, even after several days. 

 The same reddish-brown colour is seen when the plant dies after being 

 kept for some time in sea-water. On immersing fresh fibres for a minute 

 or a little more in glycerine, washing and returning to sea- water, most of 

 the cells were, as a rule, found to have resisted the glycerine and to be 

 still alive. In one case young fibres resisted it for half-an-hour. I con- 

 clude from these experiments that while Bangia does resist the action of 

 concentrated glycerine, such resistance is very limited in its duration. 



Alcohol of 30, 50, and 70 per cent, kills at once, producing the 

 reddish-brown colour and contraction of the cells. In 90 per cent, alcohol 

 the cells contracted greatly, but retained their green colour both by re- 

 flected and transmitted light, the contents being granular ; on carefully 

 drying and returning to sea-water, the cells swelled again, but the con- 



