Coe — A Century of Zoology in America. 379 



pleted their preparation for research by a year or more 

 at a German university. The more mature zoologists, 

 too, looked forward with keen anticipation to spending 

 their summer vacations and sabbatical years in research 

 in a German laboratory or at the famous Naples station 

 in which the German influence was dominant. 



With the rise of experimental biology since 1890, how- 

 ever, the American zoologists have shown so high a degree 

 of originality in devising experiments, so much skill in 

 performing them, and such keenness in analyzing the 

 results, that they have assumed the world leadership in 

 several of the special fields into which the science of 

 zoology is now divided. 



Biological Periodicals. 



Perhaps in no better way can the progress of biology in 

 America be illustrated than by a brief survey of the 

 origin and development of the more important biological 

 journals. For it will be seen that these publications have 

 become more numerous and more specialized as the sci- 

 ence has advanced in specialization. 



The early publications — which as is well known, treated 

 mainly of the birds, mammals and other vertebrates, and 

 of insects, Crustacea and shells — consisted mainly of sep- 

 arate books or pamphlets, published by private subscrip- 

 tion. After the establishment of the so-called Academies 

 of Science, or of Arts and Sciences, toward the end of 

 the 18th and in the first quarter of the 19th century, the 

 reports of the meetings began to be published as period- 

 ical Journals, supported by the academies. In these 

 publications, and in this Journal which was founded at 

 the same time, appear papers on all branches of science, 

 including zoology. As soon as zoology in America 

 assumed its modern aspects through the influence of 

 Louis Agassiz and his followers the earliest strictly 

 zoological journals were established. 



It should -be noted, however, that the journals of the 

 scientific and natural history societies were more or less 

 fully devoted to zoological topics according to the nature 

 of the activities of the members and correspondents. 

 After the establishment of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology by Louis Agassiz came the founding in 1863 of its 

 Bulletin and later its Memoirs. These publications have 

 continued to the present day as a standard of excellence 



