108 : Scientific News. (January, 
are usually given .with the investigations themselves, and are 
therefore scattered about in different journals and isolated publi- 
cations; hence arises the necessity for some sort of repertory in 
which the stray accounts and straggling items may be gathered 
and summarized. The department of microscopy will make this 
work its special concern. The necessity for immediate informa- 
tion makes it impossible to avoid a more or less chaotic presenta- 
tion of subjects, and reviews of progress in special directions 
will therefore be in order from time to time. 
There is another feature of the work proposed in this depart- 
ment to which we wish to invite particular attention. Experience 
has shown that each different object requires a special mode of 
treatment, and that the same object must be treated differently 
according to the nature of the problem in hand. For example, 
the course of preparation which has given satisfactory results in 
the study of the development of the ova of a certain species, may 
prove quite inadequate when applied to a different though closely 
allied species. And it has been found that different stages in the 
development of the same ovum often require different modes of 
preservation. The investigator cannot, therefore, blindly adopt 
the methods employed by others, but must, in by far the greater 
number of cases, determine by experiment the method to be pur- 
sued. But such experiments demand a general knowledge of 
methods, and, above all, a knowledge of the special applications 
of methods in cognate subjects. It is in the adaptation of meth- 
ods to special subjects that the skill of the investigator is shown. 
Our information of the methods employed in specific cases should 
be as extended as possible. To meet this need entire courses of 
methods that have led to successful results in typical cases will 
continue to find a place in this department. 
uch then are the aims of “ microscopy.” If those who take 
an active interest in the cultivation of microscopical methods de- 
sire to further these aims, they can do so, and at the same time 
confer a favor, by communicating to the editor any information 
respecting methods which they have found useful, or by sending | 
published accounts of important methods for review in these 
pages. 
sA’ 
sVe 
SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
— The winter session of the Teachers’ School of Science con- 
nected with the Boston Society of Natural History commenced 
in October with a lecture on sponges, by Professor Alpheus Hyatt, 
who will conduct a course of ten lessons upon the structure of ani- 
mals. The plan pursued by Professor Hyatt has special reference 
to the teaching of methods of observation. On. Jan. 3d will be 
commenced a supplementary course of ten practical laboratory 
