398 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 977 



termine if possible what effect climatic and en- 

 vironmental factors may have on the variabil- 

 ity of the species. The now completed labori- 

 ous task of measuring (involving over 10,000 

 measurements under a magnifying glass) has 

 been carried out in the laboratory of the de- 

 partment of zoology of Washington Univer- 

 sity. 



Dr. Abbott also made studies of the blood of 

 Thallasema, an echiurid worm that inhabits 

 the dead tests of the " sand dollar." This 

 fluid is interesting from the standpoint of its 

 corpuscles, which, like those of vertebrates, are 

 of two kinds — ameboid forms and hemoglobin- 

 bearing, respiratory cells. The individual 

 cycle of these cells and their probable func- 

 tions were worked out during the latter part 

 of the summer, and the results are in press in 

 the Washington University Quarterly. In 

 about twenty-five per cent, of the worms 

 studied the hemoglobin-bearing corpuscles 

 formed were found to be parasitized by an un- 

 described species of Hoemogregarina — the first 

 record of a hsemosporidian parasite in an in- 

 vertebrate host. Portions of the life cycle of 

 the form were worked out, and it is hoped to 

 complete this at some future time. 



Mr. L. F. Shackell, instructor in pharmacol- 

 ogy, St. Louis, University School of Medicine, 

 was engaged in a study of methods for protect- 

 ing wood against the attacks of marine borers. 

 Nearly seventy pieces of wood were coated with 

 mixtures containing a variety of poisons, and 

 are being allowed to remain in the water of 

 Beaufort Harbor for nine months, the last 

 three of which will coincide with the breeding 

 season of Teredo and Limnoria. 



Professor H. V. Wilson, of the University 

 of North Carolina, spent a part of the summer 

 in an investigation bearing upon the question 

 of the reciprocal interaction of cells of differ- 

 ent species, his observations dealing especially 

 with the behavior of the amoebocytes in the 

 lymph of the sea urchins Arhacia and Toxop- 



Dr. James J. Wolfe, professor of biology in 

 Trinity College, Durham, N. C, spent seven 

 weeks at the laboratory completing his inves- 

 tigation of Padina, begun here in the summer 



of 1910, so far as the work which had to be 

 done at the seaside is concerned. Forty-eight 

 cultures of eggs and tetraspores were started 

 in aquaria in the laboratory and later trans- 

 ferred to various localities in the harbor. 

 These were collected on a special trip made to 

 Beaufort, September 25. A subsequent exam- 

 ination, not yet quite complete, shows fairly 

 conclusively an alternation of a sexual with an 

 asexual generation. From July 18 to Septem- 

 ber 1 general records were kept covering rate 

 of growth, formation of hairs, and periodicity 

 in the production of sex organs. The forego- 

 ing, together with a eytological examination 

 at critical stages, is now being incorporated 

 in a paper on " The Life History of Padina." 



Dr. A. J. Goldfarb, of the College of the 

 City of New York, visited the laboratory from 

 August 6-17 in order to continue certain ex- 

 periments begun earlier in the season at the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory of the Carnegie 

 Institution, on the grafting of eggs together 

 and on certain changes produced by chemical 

 means. Extensive dredging operations about 

 the harbor and close to the laboratory appear 

 to have polluted the harbor waters, and it 

 was found necessary to bring in sea water 

 from outside the harbor to secure normal de- 

 velopment of the fertilized eggs of Toxop- 

 neustes variegatus into perfect plutei larvae. 

 With this water the eggs when subjected to 

 the action of a f If NaCl solution tended to 

 fuse together in large numbers, and to con- 

 tinue their fusion into various types of single 

 and double organisms. These fusions were 

 produced in the same manner and gave rise to 

 the same tj^pes of fusions as those obtained at 

 the Tortugas earlier in the season, and estab- 

 lished beyond all question that this new 

 method for the production of fused eggs and 

 larvae is superior, in simplicity, in absence 

 of disturbing physical factors, and in the num- 

 ber of fusions, to the methods formerly used 

 by the writer, by Driesch and by Herbst. 



Dr. Albert Kunz, of the University of Iowa, 

 studied the habits, the morphology of the re- 

 productive organs and the embryology of the 

 viviparous fish, Oamhusia afflnis, and the early 



