392 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. (VoL. XXXII. 
This supremacy of interest in marine biology is not, however, 
confined to the seaside laboratory; it finds its way into text- 
books and schoolrooms. Laboratory guides in which marine 
types very largely predominate are not unknown, and too many 
a teacher of biology in collegiate courses and in the secondary 
schools of our inland towns depends upon marine forms for 
laboratory study and demonstration, to the sad neglect of the 
fauna with which both he and his pupils come in daily contact. 
From a pedagogical point of view this element of remoteness 
in the objects of study is unfortunate, for it tends to abridge 
the sympathetic contact with nature and the development on 
the part of the pupil of a lively interest in the world of life 
about him, a feature of large cultural value in all biological 
education. 
The writer has found a widespread feeling in biological circles 
that the fresh-water environment affords far less of value for 
investigation and instruction than the marine. Considered 
merely volumetrically, the marine fauna may well have the 
advantage, but all the general problems of biology can be 
approached with ease, and at times to even greater advantage 
at the fresh-water station; and, furthermore, in variety and rich- 
ness the fauna of fresh water, in some localities at least, com- 
‘pares very favorably with that at the seaside. It may then be 
that one of the functions of the fresh-water station is to 
preserve and foster an interest in fresh-water life and to empha- 
size its availability and utility for purposes of instruction. In 
no sense of the word, however, are the marine and fresh-water 
stations to be regarded as rivals; each is the necessary comple- 
ment of the other, and both alike have their place in the field 
of biology. 
The movement which has resulted in the establishment of a 
number of fresh-water biological stations in the north central 
states in the past few years has had a variety of sources. 
Prominent among these have been, doubtless, the successful 
examples of the marine stations, and the desire on the part of 
inland workers to have near-at-hand resorts for summer work 
which should offer to their students analogous advantages with- 
out the expense attendant upon a trip to the seashore. The 
