514 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND , FISHERIES. 
profound changes of color in the course of their metamorphosis into 
the adult stage that it seems desirable that a pictorial record of such 
changes should be undertaken. The only way in which it is possible 
to carry out this plan is to have the young fishes figured by a com- 
petent artist from living specimens kept in the system of aquaria now 
in operation in the hatching rooms of the station. A beginning has 
been made in preparing a series of colored sketches of the young and 
the sexes of the sea bass by Mr. S. F. Denton, a water-color artist of 
very marked ability; these sketches prove that a great deal still remains 
to be worked out for any one species, as regards the changes from youth 
to adolescence and the equally great differences existing in many cases 
in the form aqd coloration of the sexes, and when published in con- 
nection with the development of a given species, they will constitute 
monographs of the most enduring economic and scientific value as con- 
tributions to fish-cultural literature, while their value as purely scientific 
productions will in no way be diminished. 
Little is known of the histological djetails of the structure of the 
alimentary canals of fishes, and it affords the writer great pleasure to 
state that during the present season from July 17 to August 28 Mr. 
C. F. W. McClure, a fellow in biology in Princeton College, made a col- 
lection of the viscera of the common fishes as a basis for an extended 
study in this direction. These materials were prepared with great care 
and will no doubt afford valuable scientific results, especially as to the 
structure and functions of the regions of the alimentary tract in different 
forms. The economic bearings of such investigations in comparative 
histology and physiology are obvious. 
Equally important collections of the brains of fishes have been made 
by another fellow in biology from Princeton College, Mr. J. Warue 
Phillips. Sixty-nine brains of fishes were exposed in the skull by him 
and carefully hardened in Muller’s fluid for sectioning according to the 
formula of Weigert. These sixty-nine include twenty-two species, of 
which six are Selachians and one a Gfanoid. This series will be of great 
value in working out the architecture of the brain in these types and, in 
conjunction with results already obtained or under way at the hauds of 
Dr. H. F. Osborn, will be of great service in making further comparisons 
with higher types, and possibly some light may be thus obtained as to 
the psychology of fishes. 
Mr. Phillips also secured a series of sponges, 4 species ; coelenterates, 
5 species; echinoderms, 7 species; worms, 15 species; mollusca, 6 spe- 
cies; fishes, 21 species; a series of the eggs of Limulus and also of the 
squid; and a large number of starfishes, sea-urchins, holothurians, and 
skates for dissection. 
Mr. C. F. Hodge, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, made a 
series of injections of the vascular system of the common sand shark, 
flounder, and hake, and also prepared a skeleton of the flounder for the 
purpose of study in connection with a series of embryos of the common 
