THE FRESH-WATER BIOLOGICAL STATIONS OF THE 



WORLD. 1 



By Henry B. Ward. 



Away back at the beginning of the investigation of minnte forms of 

 life, which followed upon the invention of the microscope, or shall I 

 say discovery, for it seems to have been historically an accident, the 

 early students searched the ditches and ponds and lakes for the organ- 

 isms which constituted the objects of their study. Anton von Leeu- 

 wenhoek, whose name is familiar to you as one of the most zealous 

 early workers among microscopic objects, enriched science by a long 

 series of new organisms of this character. Roesel von Rosenhof, whose 

 careful investigations on various fresh-water animals, published under 

 the title of Insect Diversions, are still standard sources of information 

 concerning the habits and structure of these forms, together with 

 Swammerdam, Trembley, O. F. Muller, and a whole host of others 

 devoted their attention almost exclusively to the fresh-water fauna. 

 But this movement seems to have culminated with the appearance in 

 1838 of Ehren berg's famous volume The Infusion Animalcules as Com- 

 plete Organisms. 



Extended investigations had already impressed zoologists with the 

 richness of the marine fauna. Numerous animal groups of common 

 occurrence in the sea were apparently entirely wanting in fresh water 

 and the astounding richness of the subtropical and tropical oceans 

 with which the European investigators came early in contact on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean and in the expeditions to the new lands 

 of the Tropics entirely overshadowed the life that had hitherto been 

 found in pond or ditch. It is in my opinion also no small factor that 

 many of the marine forms which were brought to the attention of 

 scientists were dazzling in their beauty of form and in the brilliancy 

 of their coloring. The quieter, more unassuming forms of lacustrine 

 life in temperate regions could make no corresponding impress on the 

 minds of the observers. So the scientific world went to the seashore 

 for study and everywhere along the coast of Europe, and even in 

 the islands of the Tropics were to be found the vacation resorts of 

 scientists. 



'Annual address of the president before the Nebraska Academy of Sciences at 

 Lincoln, November 25, 1898. Printed in Science, April 7, 1899, Vol. IX, No. 223. 



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