450 REPORT— 1890. 
The Morphological Department has not been neglected, and in nearly 
every possible way the wants of students have been satisfied. Those who 
worked in the Zoological Station a few years ago would be astonished to 
see how much greater comfort and how many more facilities are now 
afforded to microscopists and embryologists than formerly. Nearly every 
room and table, and especially those in the so-called ‘large’ laboratory, 
have benefited greatly from the increased financial means now at the 
disposal of the Director. It was sometimes felt to be a drawback by 
those who worked in the large laboratory that they did not obtain the 
complete seclusion, nor the advantages of the greater number of tables, 
drawers, and pigeon-holes, enjoyed by those who were fortunate in 
having a separate room. This inequality has been removed; each 
worker in the large laboratory is now almost completely separated from 
the others, and the table surface, as well as the number of drawers and 
pigeon-holes, placed at the disposal of each worker has been more than 
doubled. The supply of sea and fresh water has been greatly increased, 
and gas and other conveniences for work have been provided in such a 
way as to make each student entirely independent; in fact, a general 
feeling has been expressed that the Zoological Station is one of the most 
comfortable of laboratories to work in. 
In addition to improving the internal arrangements of the Station, the 
Direction has extended its command over a wider sea area than formerly, 
and has also provided more efficient means of obtaining the material 
requisite for study. In several cases considerable sums of money have 
been spent in sending out small expeditions to procure a greater number 
of embryos than could otherwise be obtained when these were needed, 
in certain stages of development, for the purpose of solving some special 
problem. 
The extraordinary demand for Selachian embryos, and the fact that 
almost every species has to be studied separately, to enable the morpho- 
logist to deal successfully with the question of the phylogeny of vertebrate 
organisation, render it necessary to find a way of overcoming the diffi- 
culty of obtaining dog-fishes and skates at all seasons of the year. It has 
accordingly been resolved to combine this task with another great under- 
taking, which has hitherto been deliberately omitted from the programme 
of the Zoological Station, viz., the investigation of the greater depths of 
the Mediterranean. 
Much has been done in this direction by English and French expedi- 
tions, and their work will not improbably be continued by the Prince of 
Monaco, to whose munificence and investigations science is already 
indebted for important contributions on the fauna of the Mediterranean. 
The Zoological Station has refrained hitherto from participating in this 
field of action, but the time seems now to have arrived for launching out 
in this new undertaking. Encouraged by the generous co-operation of 
the Italian naval authorities, and with the support of Admiral Magnaghi, 
the hydrographer of the navy, a series of investigations will shortly be 
carried out, from which important results will no doubt be obtained. It 
is proposed to commence in the spring of next year with the investigation 
of the greater depths near Capri, where the bottom of the Mediterranean 
slopes rapidly down to a depth of a thousand metres or more, and where 
the conditions of the sea-bottom promise to yield interesting faunistic 
results. It is hardly necessary to remark that the Zoological Station is 
especially adapted for conducting such a research, with its large number 
