ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1093 



THE AQUARIUM. MARINE PARK, BOSTON. 

 By permission of the American Architect 



forms is not quite as high as that of exclusively 

 marine nor as low as that of exclusively fresh 

 water forms. 



The amphibians (or frogs, toads and sala- 

 manders) are fish-like in the tadpole stage, and 

 have about the same osmotic pressure of the 

 blood as the fresh water fishes. It is of great 

 interest to note that, wlien they emerge from 

 the aquatic stage to lead a terrestrial life, they 

 take with them on the land the same kind of 

 blood which was developed in their fish-like 

 bodies. We suppose that the reptiles arose 

 from the Amphibia, and reptilian blood has an 

 osmotic pressure quite similar to tliat of the 

 frogs. The birds and mammals were divergent 

 lines of evolution from the reptiles, and the os- 

 motic pressure of the blood is similar to that 

 which preceded. In this way we can explain 

 the presence of salts in our own blood today. 

 It is an inheritance carried along througli all 

 the ages during which the living world has 

 evolved. It came about in the first place in 

 the creation of living matter in the sea, and 

 the salts of the sea played, and to this day play 

 an important part in the processes which we 



call living. Professor A. B. MacCallum has 

 shown that our blood today contains the same 

 salts in the same proportions as they existed in 

 the seas of primeval days. 



It becomes continually more evident that to 

 properly understand man and the other mam- 

 mals, we must study the lower forms, too. 

 Scientists have already devoted a great deal of 

 attention to structures ; they will give more at- 

 tention in the future to the study of the evolu- 

 tion of living processes. 



NEW AQUARIUMS IN AMERICA .\ND 

 EUROPE. 



TWO American cities outside of New York 

 liave supplied themselves with public aqua- 

 riums of considerable size. A photograph 

 of the aquarium in Boston, opened about a year 

 .■i,£;o, is shown in this number of the Bulletin. 

 The building is attractive both inside and out, 

 and is equipped with fresh and salt water tanks. 

 The collection is small as compared with that 

 of the New York Aquarium, but is well 



