520 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
workers ; the University of Pennsylvania by three; Harvard University 
by five; Princeton College by three; Wooster University, Wooster, 
Ohio, by one ; Swarthmore College by one. Eighteen workers therefore 
availed themselves of the facilities afforded by the laboratories of the 
U. S. Fish Commission during the season, these eighteen representing 
six well known institutions of learning. The Boston Marine Biological 
Laboratory, Williams College, the University of ludiana, Harvard Uni- 
versity, Yassar College, Swarthmore College, Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity, and the University of Pennsylvania have obtained collections for 
biological work through the facilities offered by the U. S. Fish Com mis 
sion. About thirty teachers and students availed themselves of these 
advantages. 
Of the monographic work in the widest sense undertaken and carried 
on to a more or less advanced stage of completion, the work on the 
sturgeon and the iconography and life histories of the food-fishes is either 
well advanced or in progress. The proposed monography of the medusae 
and the hydromedusae by Prof. W. K. Brooks (for which he has been 
gathering materials for several years not only here but in many other 
localities) is the most extensive and, from a purely morphological view, 
perhaps the most important. The next are the two monographs by 
Mr. S. Watase on the squid and the king crab, which will vie with any- 
thing produced abroad as respects the thoroughness with which the 
work will be carried out. Finally, the work on the ascidians by Mr. 
Morgan, that on the worms by Dr. Andrews, and that on the oyster by 
Mr. C. F. Hodge, and by Dr. Brooks on 'Sphcerium , will add four more 
monographs or papers of important economical or scientific value. 
Eight important monographs or papers at least may be expected to be 
the outgrowth, wholly or in part, of the work of some seven of the 
workers engaged in study in the laboratory of the U. S. Fish Commis- 
sion during the season of 1888 . 
Sundry improvements, such as dividing the main laboratory in part 
into stalls for individual workers, have been proposed, so as to make it 
possible to have more shelf room for reagents, materials, and apparatus. 
A new self-regulating paraffin bath has been purchased for general use 
by the workers engaged in research requiring the use of the micro- 
tome. A more complete set of glassware, adapted to the requirements 
of modern biological research, is much needed for the laboratory, and 
will be added during the next year. These and minor changes in 
the arrangement of facilities, such as the extension of the system of 
aquaria now in use, will render the laboratory of the U. S. Fish Com- 
mission at Wood’s Holl, with its means for obtaining materials by 
the aid of launches and steam-vessels, the most thoroughly equipped 
marine station in the United States. As it is, there is now no other 
place where marine life may be studied with such facilities as here, 
since the introduction of wooden and rubber pipe for conveying the 
sea water from the supply tanks to the aquaria. Furthermore, there is 
