October 27, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



469 



done by university and college men who were 

 busy with professional duties during the rest 

 of the year. 



An examination of these papers shows that 

 they may be placed, for convenience, into three 

 groups, as follows: 1, Systematies and Dis- 

 tribution. The works of Mayor on the MedusfE, 

 Vaughan on the Corals, H. L. Clark on the 

 Echinoderms, Treadwell on the Annelids, Cush- 

 man on the Foraminifera and others show, 

 that, contrary to general belief, the tropics 

 still offer extraordinarily rich fields for this 

 fundamental and important branch of biology. 

 Work of this character, which necessarily pre- 

 cedes all other biological work on the organisms 

 involved, has been carried on continuously 

 since the establishment of the Department of 

 Marine Biology by the Carnegie Institution. 

 2, Embryology. In the earlier years of the 

 existence of the laboratory numerous papers 

 were published on embryologieal subjects, but 

 latterly this phase of biology has received rela- 

 tively little attention, although there has been 

 no abatement of facility or opportunity for 

 this kind of work. The explanation of this is 

 near at hand. It will be recalled that the 

 laboratory was established at the time when the 

 chief , interest of biologists generally was in 

 embryology, but that soon thereafter more and 

 more attention was given to genetics, almost 

 wholly at the expense of embryology. At the 

 present time a relatively small number of 

 descriptive embryologieal researches are being 

 prosecuted. 3, Crucial Physiological Experi- 

 ments and Observations. It frequently hap- 

 pens that some general conclusion based on a 

 considerable amount of experimental or ob- 

 servational work already completed by one or 

 more investigators, depends for its validity 

 upon some crucial experiment or observation. 

 It seems that because of the organisms, the 

 climate or other conditions peculiar to the 

 tropics, a large number of experimental or 

 descriptive papers depended for their crucia;l 

 data on work done at the Tortugas laboratory, 

 or on expeditions from that laboratory to other 

 points in the tropics. 



Owing to the brief season during which the 

 laboratory has been open each year, problems 

 in the science of genetics, which at present 



occupies so large a place in biology, can not 

 be carried on with entire satisfaction because 

 of the fact that sudh work as a rule requires 

 continuous attention for long periods. 



Of the researches now in progress at Tor- 

 tugas may be mentioned, first, that of Professor 

 Longley, of Goucher College, on the coloration 

 of reef ' fishes, an investigation which he has 

 been carrying on for a number of years by 

 means of a specially designed diving hood 

 which enables him to study the habits of fislhes 

 in their natural environment. In addition to 

 making important contributions to the general 

 subject of animal coloration, he has collected 

 what is perhaps the largest body of data in 

 existence on feeding and other fundamental re- 

 actions of coral reef fishes. Doctor Bartseh, 

 of the National Museum, has been engaged in 

 breeding experiments on Cerion, a genus of 

 land snails inhabiting tlie Florida Keys and the 

 Bahamas, with a view to determining their 

 specific relationships and their evolutionary 

 history. Professor Lipman, of the University 

 of California, has begun a comprehensive study 

 of the activities of marine bacteria. The in- 

 dications are that bacteria play as large a part 

 in the life of the sea as they have been found 

 to play in the life on land. It is consequently 

 difficult to overestimate either the importance 

 or the magnitude of this investigation. Cap- 

 tain Potts, of Cambridge, England, is continu- 

 ing his studies, begun elsewhere, on -factors 

 influencing growth rates among various species 

 of invertebrates. Dr. Morgulis, of the Uni- 

 versity of Nebraska Medical School, has begun 

 a biochemical study of the blood of certain 

 crustaceans, and finally, I may mention my 

 own work on marine amebas, of which a mono- 

 graph is now ready for the press. 



A number of researches which were inaugu- 

 rated at Tortugas require traveling to dis- 

 tant points for the successful prosecution of 

 these researches. Among such investigations 

 which are in progress at present may be men- 

 tioned those on marine Annelids by Professor 

 Treadwell, who has visited a number of the 

 West Indian Islands, Hawaii and several of the 

 South Sea groups; Professor Harvey, who has 

 visited various parts of the world in search of 

 luminous organisms for his studies in bio- 



