Scientific News. 761 
opened July 10th, as already noticed in these pages. The building 
is a large but plain two-story structure, noticeable for the number 
and size of the windows. The ground floor is devoted to elementary 
zoological instruction. In one corner a small room, partitioned off 
from the rest, affords a study for the instructor, Mr. B. H. Van Vleck, 
while all of the rest of the space is occupied by students’ tables, 
aquaria, ete. The upper floor, the arrangement of which is essen- 
tially the same, is devoted to investigators, and is under the charge 
of Dr. C. O. Whitman, who is the director of the laboratory. 
Various circumstances rendered it impossible to send out the cireu- 
lars for the laboratory until so late a date that but few could avail 
themselves of its facilities. There are the present season about a 
dozen students, equally divided between the two rooms. Notwith- 
of rust. The directors hand solved the problem of board by opening 
a boarding house in a cottage (the use of which is given the labora- 
tory by Mr. Fay) where good table board is furnished for $5.00 
per week. The property of the laboratory now amounts to nearl 
$10,000, but it needs several thousand dollars more before it can 
placed in the position it ought to occupy. 
PALANOC, ISLAND OF MASBATE, PHILIPPINES, 
April 29th, 1888. 
EDITORS OF THE AMERICAN NATURALIST:—I herewith for- 
ward you a third instalment of narrative of our trip to the 
Philippines, which I shall be glad to have published in the 
AMERICAN NATURALIST, if you think best. We have now been 
in the islands eight months, and have three remaining; have 
visited and made representative collections on eleven of the larger 
islands of the group, and have four still remaining to visit. We 
ave made large collections in most branches of animal life, 
and have much which from the data we have in hand appears to be 
new. We shall be able to make a very good comparative study 
of the islands from our collection. We are already able to say 
that the islands can be divided into at least five very distinct areas 
—that of the west including Paraqua and Balabac; that of the 
us 
that of the west including Samar and Leite, and that of the north 
of Luzon and adjacent a e Whether the great island of Min- 
