232 The American Naturalist. [March,, 
facilities without systematic instruction results in much mis- 
directed work. Without systematic courses of instruction 
many of those desiring the advantages of marine work will 
spend the summer in desultory work to little profit. To avoid 
this result the management ofthe school have planned regular 
courses of lectures accompanied by laboratory work of the 
same character as the biological courses in our colleges. The 
courses which are given at the present time are the following = 
1. Elementary Zoology ; a course of lectures with laboratory 
work upon zoological types. 2. Comparative Embryology; 
this consists of thirty lectures upon embryology, accompanied 
by practical work with illustrative embryological types. 3. 
Elementary Botany; including instruction in the study of 
flowering plants. 4. Cryptogamic Botany; a course of lectures 
with laboratory work upon the chief types of cryptogams. 5. 
A course in bacteriology ; including 15 lectures upon the his- 
tory of bacteriology and practical work upon bacteriological 
methods. All regular courses last six weeks, although the 
laboratory is open for a longer period. The work done in 
these courses is of the highest character. Those engaged in in- 
struction are from our best colleges, and the nature of the 
courses which they give is almost identical with the courses 
given in the colleges themselves. Indeed, in some respects, 
the work in these courses at the summer schools is consider- 
ably in advance of the work that is done in the collegesin the 
same departments. The student at the laboratory has several 
weeks of uninterrupted work upon one subject, and his thoughts 
are not distracted by numerous other branches of learning 
which he is pursuing at the same time. This makes it possible 
for the instruction to be even more thorough and of a higher 
character than is possible in our colleges. The work in biology 
done in the school at Cold Spring Harbor is, therefore, of 
exactly thesame character and in some respects more thorough 
than the biological work in the colleges. Of course not so- 
many branches are taught as may be found in our colleges, but 
the branches that are taught, which are those especially re- 
quiring living specimens at the sea shore for study, are pur- 
sued with thoroughness. 
