The American Naturalist. 
EDITORIAL. 
T^HE University of Pennsylvania has undertaken to sustain 
original scientific research in a more comprehensive and 
thorough way than heretofore. In biology, the biological school 
permits of opportunites in this direction, of which especial advan- 
tage is being taken in the departments of embryology and botany, 
and with valuable results. The department of psychophysics is 
also in active operation, and is under able management. More 
recently a department of archeology and paleontology has been 
established, and considerable space for the exhibition of the objects 
of research of the department have been provided in the rear 
library building. Valuable collections will soon be placed in 
these exhibition halls, selected from the best private collections in 
Philadelphia, and other collections are now being acquired by the 
University. The progress made in this direction is gratifying to 
the friends of Natural Science, and to the friends of the University, 
and is one of the many indications of vigorous vitality which this, 
the oldest University in the United States, now exhibits. It is to 
be hoped that these important departures will be well sus- 
tained from the material side, as they are sure to be on the part of the 
numerous able men who have been employed conduct their work. 
— The numbers of the American Naturalist for 1889 were 
issued at the following dates : January, March ist, 1889; Feb- 
ruary, May 31st; March, June 28th ; April, August 15th ; May, 
September 28th ; June, December ist; July, November 1 8th; 
August, January 5th, 1890 ; September, February 4th ; October, 
March 13th; November, May loth; December, July 19th. The 
delays in the issues as above recorded were entirely involuntary 
on the part of the proprietor and editors, and they owe their publi- 
cation to the enterprise of the present publishers, whose connec- 
tion with the Naturalist commenced nominally with the year 
1890. It was also owing to the failure of the former publishers 
to submit proof to the editors, that one hundred pages are 
skipped between the numbers for March and April, and the 
paging is duplicated in the numbers for February and March. 
