784 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



of fifteen degrees centigrade and corrected 

 by a standard salinometer. It shows that 

 pure sea water of uniform temperature 

 can be got at the laboratory at all hours. 

 Taken at the end of July and beginning of 

 August of a reputedly hot summer, it shows 

 the lack of excessive heat by day and the 

 comfortable coolness of early morning. 

 Moreover, it expresses the small range of 

 tide and the occurrence of a main high tide 

 and a lesser tide each twenty-four hours, 

 one rising some sixteen and the other but 

 four inches. 



The climatic conditions proved favorable 

 for work; during June, July and August 

 we found the temperature in the labora- 

 tory not higher than 86° Fahrenheit by 

 day and falling to 74° or 72° at night, 

 tempered by a strong sea breeze which be- 

 gan from seven to nine in the morning and 

 died away before sunset, and by a gentle 

 land breeze late in the night. Afternoon 

 showers laid the dust and kept the vegeta- 

 tion green upon the rocky hills. 



The annual rainfall officially recorded 

 for this locality is a golden mean between 

 the extremes at Port Henderson and Port 

 Antonio, being 55 to 70 inches, while as 

 little as 30 to 35 at the former and as much 

 as 100 and more at the latter region. This 

 rainfall is so distributed that good crops 

 of bananas, eoeoanuts, sugar cane and veg- 

 etables result. Yet at the same time within 

 a radius of only ten miles the rainfall map 

 shows localities having all the possibilities 

 of the island; a small region with more 

 than 100, a large region with 75 to 95, and 

 small regions near us with 40 to 50 and 

 even 30 to 35 inches of rain annually. 



The laboratory was within but a mile of 

 the center of the city of Montego Bay, be- 

 ing in fact within the city limits. This 

 proximity to a very interesting old colonial 

 town of several thousand inhabitants with 

 good shops, fine market, extensive trade 



and frequent connections with the United 

 States as well as with all parts of Jamaica 

 and with Colon, proved a most decided ad- 

 vantage. 



The building rented as a laboratory was 

 a dwelling house known as "Snug Har- 

 bor," to the east of the town on the main 

 road to Falmouth and close to the sea. It 

 is so well located for this purpose that it 

 was selected as a favorable site back in 

 1891 and at present is the more desirable 

 as being fitted by its present owner with 

 screens to keep out mosquitoes and with the 

 conveniences made possible by a city water 

 supply. 



However, the chief factor in such a sta- 

 tion is the character of the accessible 

 fauna and this was soon found to be on the 

 whole better than in any other part of 

 Jamaica yet tried, though lacking some of 

 the special advantages of the reefs of Port 

 Antonio and the Cays off Kingston. 



The strong feature of the fauna is its 

 comprehensiveness, its inclusion of so many 

 diverse ecological areas within reachable 

 limits. 



A glance at the map would show that the 

 laboratory while so exposed to the sea as to 

 have Salpas, Tricliodesmium and the like 

 pelagic forms of life brought to its very 

 doors, is yet close to coral reefs and 

 stretches of clean white sand shore and bot- 

 tom. The generally precipitous north side 

 of Jamaica that drops in a third of a mile 

 to the hundred-fathom limit and then at 

 once to the two-thousand-fathom ocean 

 bottom offers in Montego Bay somewhat of 

 an exception, since there is here an area a 

 mile wide and broad for dredging and fish- 

 ing within the hundred-fathom limit. 



While the general shore is clean rock or 

 sand, there is a fourth great source of ani- 

 mal life, presented by the mangrove shores 

 that lie at safe but convenient distances to 

 the west and the east, in addition to the 



