[5] INTRODUCTION. 



physical questions which arise, and there are optical and photographic 

 rooms, and a machine shop fitted up for doing all ordinary grades of 

 work. More than a thousand naturalists have availed themselves of 

 these opportunities for study. Of this number 375 have been Germans, 

 240 Italians, 85 Russians, 80 Englishmen, 40 Dutchmen, 40 Americans 

 (from the United States), 30 Swiss, 35 Austrians, 22 Belgians, 17 

 Spaniards, 17 Hungarians, the remainder being Scandinavians, Greeks, 

 Roumanians, Bulgarians, Japanese, and Hindoos. Truly an inter- 

 national array! 



The activity of the investigators at the station does not expend 

 itself wholly or even largely upon the description and naming of new 

 species. It seeks rather to discover the innermost secrets of life, 

 and to learn all the comparisons that can be made between one set 

 of animals and another. The results of the work are published in three 

 ways and appear periodically. The description of the Fauna and 

 Flora of the Gulf of Naples began to be published in 1880, and up to 

 the end of 1897 twenty-four quarto volumes of these exhaustive memoirs 

 bad been issued, magnificently illustrated with numerous text fixures 

 and colored and plain plates. The Contributions from the Zoological 

 Stations are the shorter articles brought out by the workers at the 

 station, and thirteen volumes of these have appeared. The Zoologi- 

 cal Yearbook is now in its twenty-first volume, and seeks to give not 

 only a list of all articles and l)Ooks of the current year pertaining to the 

 science, but also brief abstracts of their contents.' 



To inaugurate the station in 1872 required about $100,000, besides the 

 land in the beautiful Villa Nazionale donated by the city of Naples. 

 Friends of science in Germany and England contributed about 140,000 

 of this amount, but the remainder came from Dr. Dohrn's own fortune. 

 The money necessary to meet the running expenses of the institution 

 comes from several sources. Each contributor of £100 annually to 

 the station supports a " table," and has the right to name a person 

 to receive the benefits thereof. At present 30 tables, are thus pro- 

 vided for, the Italian Government paying for 7, different in sti tu- 

 tu tions in Germany for 11, England for 3, Russia, Austria, and the 

 United States Mor 2 each, and Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland for 

 1 each. The tables are paid for year by year, and there is no endow- 

 ment fund, though Dr. Dohrn is striving now to establish one. The 

 German Government appropriates £2,000 for the station 5 the fees of 

 visitors to the aquarium amount to about £1,000; the sale of preserved 

 animals to about £700, and the sale of old material of various kinds to 

 about £100. The expenses, however, always manage to keep pace with 



'The Smithsonian Institutit u has supported a table at the Station regularly since 

 1893. The Collegiate AlumniB have begun supporting a "woman's table" in com- 

 memmoratiou of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Station. During some years 

 Columbia University has had a table, and one has been paid for at intervals by a 

 few of the leading American universities alone or in conjunction with the American 

 Society of Naturalists. 



