Dec. 1 8, 1879] 



NATURE 



161 



stores ; on one of these stands a filter for fresh water (F), 

 and on the other side of the library door is a small table 

 (L) with washing-apparatus. The whole building is 

 warmed by a stove (St). 



The station is neatly painted outside, and is rendered 

 a very conspicuous object, both from sea and land, by the 

 royal standard of Scotland, which floats from a flagstaff 

 over the door. 



Besides microscopes, dissecting-dishes, bottles, aquaria, 

 books, &.c, the station is well fitted with dredges, trawls, 

 and canvas buckets for shore-collecting, and also pro- 

 vides wading-shoes, tarpaulins, and sou'-westers. 



There are two boats attached to the establishment, a 

 small fishing-smack and a " tub." But as these were 

 often unable, owing to unfavourable weather, to sail 

 beyond the mouth of the bay, a small steamboat is 

 urgently needed to complete the efficiency of the station. 



An Aberdeen fisherman was hired for the season, to 

 take charge of the boats and to act as general factotum. 



The Station was formally opened by Mr. Romanes on 

 August 8, but the work actually began on the 3rd, and 

 was continued until September25. Altogether there have 

 been sixteen workers, mostly Aberdeen students, the rest 

 visitors from London and elsewhere. Several of these 

 went out shore-collecting every day, a few dredged when 

 practicable, and two dredging expeditions were made 

 in H.M. gunboat Netley, the second of the two being 

 a great success. 



The fauna of the Aberdeen coast is not a remarkably 

 rich one, but still a very respectable number of specimens 

 was obtained in one way or another. I am indebted to 

 Mr. A. \V. Russell, M.A., of Marischal College, for a list 

 of all the species collected ; the list is too long for trans- 

 cription, but may be abstracted as follows : — 



It is definitely decided that, next summer, the Station 

 is to be pitched at Cromarty Firth, a far more promising 

 locality than Stonehaven Bay. By that time it is hoped 

 that the funds, which are wholly derived from voluntary 

 contributions, will be in a sufficiently flourishing con- 

 dition to admit of the purchase of a steamboat. 



It would not be a very great matter, one would think, 

 for our English universities to follow the example of 

 Aberdeen, and to provide themselves each with such an 

 establishment on some part of the English coast ; and the 

 benefit to their students, who get to think of nudibranchs, 

 echinoderms, and ccelenterates as opaque, dull-coloured 

 things in bottles, would be simply incalculable. 



In the meantime I can, from experience, cordially re- 

 commend all English students of biology who are minded 

 to begin research, as well as those who wish for nothing 

 more than a thoroughly pleasant holiday and an oppor- 

 tunity of studying their science from the too-neglected 

 " natural history " side, to spend two or three weeks of the 

 long vacation at the Scottish Zoological Station. 



T. Jeffery Parker 



THE FOSSIL LOVERS 

 TVTISS ANN GELICA kindly sends us her reply to 

 ■'■*■*■ Bret Harte's Geological Madrigal, which she assures 

 us is addressed to her. To enable the reader to under- 

 stand the young lady's reply we prefix "Dear Bret's" 

 verses : — 



A Geological Madrigal 

 (After Shcnstonc) 

 I have found out a gift for my fair, 

 I know where the fossils abound, 

 Where the footprints of Aves declare 



The birds that once walked on the ground ; 

 O, come, and — in technical speech — 



We'll walk this Devonian shore, 

 Or on some Silurian beach 



We'll wander, my love, evermore. 

 I will show thee the sinuous track 



By the slow-moving annelid made, 

 Or the Trilobite that, farther back, 



In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid. 

 Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb, 



The Plesiosaurus embalmed ; 

 In his Oolitic prime and his bloom, — ■ 

 Iguanodon safe and unharmed ! 



You wished — I remember it well, 



And I loved you the more for that wish — ■ 

 For a perfect Cystistidian shell 



And a whole holocephalic fish. 

 And O, if earth's strata contains 



In its lowest Silurian drift, 

 Or Palaeozoic remains 



The same, — 'lis your lover's free gift ! 

 Then come, love, and never say nay, 



But calm all your maidenly fears, 

 We'll note, love, in one summer's day, 



The record of millions of years; 

 And though the Darwinian plan 



Your sensitive feelings may shock, 

 We'll find the beginning of man, — ■ 



Our fossil ancestors in rock. 



My Reply to Dear Bret's Madrigal 

 Thy epistle, dear Bret, I've received, 



And trust thou'lt not think me too bold, 

 If I frankly acknowledge I'm grieved 



At the thought that to thee I've been cold. 

 How sweetly thou managest wooing ! 



What a way to my heart thou hast found ! ! 

 Abandoning billing and cooing, 



Thou tell'st me where fossils abound. 

 For ever henceforward I'm thine, 



To view Ornithichnites I'm sighing ; 

 'Don't delay, — for a ramble I pine), 



To find them in situ am dying. 

 Tridactylous, struthious, and huge ; 



With phalanges nicely indented, 

 Entombed when Dame Nature with rouge. 



The marl and the sandstone beds painted. 

 If thou wilt but extract me a femur, 



With matrix just near the trochanter, 

 I'll abandon all maidenly tremor, 



And at once name the day, thou enchanter. 



I'll only make one stipulation : — 



That, avoiding hotel, inn, and tavern, 

 We improve the time-honoured lunation, 



And our honeymoon spend in a cavern. 

 There I'll labour, content in the fetter. 



To find, happy thought ! if I can, 

 A dear second husband and better, 



A petrified pithecoid man. A. G. 



