RECENT TENDENCIES IN BIOLOGY 447 
sents in every way an enterprise of which Americans can be 
justly proud. The American Journal of Analomy is now 
filling the field left unoccupied by the cessation of the Journal 
of AMforphology.* In the department of experimental work 
many journals have sprung up, as Biometrica, edited by Carl 
Pearson, Roux’s Archiv fir Entwicklungs-Mechanik, the 
Journal of Experimental Zoology recently established in the 
United States, etc., etc. 
Exploration of the Fossil Records.—Explorations of the 
fossil records have been recently carried out on a scale never 
before attempted, involving the expenditure of large sums, 
but bringing results of great importance. The American 
Museum of Natural History, in New York City, has carried 
on an extensive survey, which has enriched it with wonderful 
collections of fossil animals. Besides explorations of the 
fossil-bearing rocks of the Western States and Territories, 
operations in another locality of great importance are con- 
ducted in the Fayfim district of Egypt. The result of the 
studies of these fossil animals is to make us acquainted not 
only with the forms of ancient life, but with the actual line 
of ancestry of many living animals. The advances in 
this direction are most interesting and most important. 
This extensive investigation of the fossil records is one of the 
present tendencies in biology. 
Conclusion. —In brief, the chief tendencies in current bio- 
logical researches are mainly included under the following 
headings: Experimental studies in heredity, evolution, and ani- 
mal behavior; more exact anatomical investigations, especially 
in cytology and neurology, the promotion and dissemination 
of knowledge through biological periodicals; the provision of 
better facilities in specially equipped laboratories, in the 
*Itisa source of gratification to biologists that—thanks to the Wistar 
Institute of Anatomy—the publication of the Journal of Morphology is to 
be continued. 
