.solution of the larger problems involved. Wliile it i.s true, for example, that 

 nothing in or about the waters studied which in any notaljle way aff(?cts any 

 <)f the great groups of the system can be wholly a matter of indiffer- 

 ence to the scientific student of tish-culture, the interests of every species 

 being more or less intimately bound up with the interests of eveiy other, yet 

 l)rovisional conclusions, at least, with regard to this, that, or the other kind 

 of fish, or with regard to fishes at large, may be reached which will have con- 

 siderable practical value, long before the entire system of intei'actions and 

 relationships is fully understood. It is not necessary that we should know 

 the food of every species of fish in the locality before we can generalize 

 profitably the food relations of any one, although inference from such pro- 

 visional generalizations must always be held subject to modification as our 

 knowledge of related matters grows. A similar remark may be made with 

 respect to such purely seientitic matters as the limits and causes of variation, 

 a very useful knowledge of which may be acquired without a full and final 

 theory of variation in general. 



In actual practice it has been found that our work may best be opened up 

 by comprehensive studies of the classification such as will give us a critical 

 knowledge of all the forms occurring in our field, and access to the published 

 literature of each; and by parallel or slightly subsequent studies of their 

 habits, life histories, and local distiibution and abundance. 



GENERAL METHODS. 



The principal methods of the Biological Station are those of field and 

 laboratory observation and record, collection, preservation, qualitative and 

 <iuantitative determination, description, illustration, generalization, experi- 

 ment, induction, and report. 



By close and persevering observation in the field, we learn much of the 

 actions, habits, and haunts of animals, of the special conditions under which, 

 they live and of many similar matters which cannot possibly be learned in 

 any other way; and not a little of this knowledge is necessary to an intelli- 

 gent treatment of both general and special problems in biology. 



The acute, persevering, sjTnpathetic observer of living nature — the "old- 

 fashioned naturalist," in short — is best to be understood as a "sj'nthetic 

 type," all of whose best qualities should be not only preseiwed but intensi- 

 fied among his variously differentiated progeny. If I may generalize my 

 (twn experience, I must say that it is extraordinarily difficult at the present 

 time to find for this work the trained and intelligent naturalist, habituated to 

 the methods of the close observer, whose eye iu>thing escapes, but whose 

 mind rapidly and skilfully sifts the miscellaneous offerings of his senses, 

 holding the significant and suggestive, and letting slip the trivial and the 

 unessential. There seem to be among our younger college men ten practical 

 embryologists to one good observer. It is, in fact, the biological station, 

 wisely and liberally managed, which is to restore to us what was best in the 

 naturalist of the old school united to what is best in the laboratory student 

 of the new. 



