626 The American Naturalist. [July, 
tula and Amphiorus. In Munich, hundreds of miles from the 
sea, is another example. Professor Richard Hertwig, by the 
aid of material from Naples, demonstrates the larval charac- 
ters of ascidians, or the fertilization of the egg of the sea urchin. 
Every group of European universities seems to have central- 
ized its marine biological work in a convenient locality, and 
this branch of their needs is supported, and is well-supported, 
even in countries whose financial resources are most limited. 
The importance of this work is felt to such a degree that it is 
not from reasons unselfish that universities have united in 
their support of a station like thatof Naples. This has become 
literally an emporium, cosmopolitan, bringing together side 
by side, perhaps not unnaturally, the best workers of many 
universities whose observations upon the best material, 
sharpened by discussion and criticism, are certainly tending 
to become the most accurate and the most fruitful in their 
direction and results. 
It is most singular that foreign countries are unquestion- — 
ingly liberal in the support of pure biology, and in the work of 
marine stations the tendency is becoming less and less on the 
part of money-givers to ask how many fish will be hatched to 
become food material. Public interest has been gradually 
coming to be directed to the general laws and the prob- 
lems of life and heredity. This has well been a hopeful sign, 
and the European biologists are not backward in emphasizing 
the importance of their studies. Professor de Lacaze-Duthiers 
does not hesitate even to propitiate the practical Cerberus, 
reminding him how often ‘ facts have been found at every step 
of science which were valueless at their discovery, but which, 
little by little, fell into line and led to applications of the 
highest importance—how the observation of the tarnishing of 
silver or the twitching leg of the frog was the origin of photo- 
graphy and telegraphy—how the purely abstract problem of 
Spontaneous generation gave rise to the antiseptics of surgery.’ 
. . In the present paper it may prove of interest to examine 
briefly the condition of a few of the biological stations of 
urope. : 
