1883. ] Editors’ Table. 59 
time naturalist he goes into raptures over the beauties and won- 
ders of tropical scenery, the luxuriant equatorial vegetation, the 
interesting human races of Ceylon—all this, while pursuing his 
special researches. It is a refreshing sign of the times that as 
histologists, embryologists and anatomists, we can do without 
museums, elaborate and costly piles of brick and mortar, but can 
by the ever resounding sea, the flowing river, the quiet lake, com- 
mune with living nature. The paleontologist even, leaving his 
boxes of bones, his drawers of disjointed skeletons and fossil 
shells, while digging in the cemeteries of departed life forms, gets 
his meed of inspiration, as ennobling in its way as Gray’s “ Elegy 
written in a Country Churchyard.” 
There is little doubt but that the zodlogical student, after a year 
or more spent in Germany, returns. with new ideas, new fields of 
research and new methods. Incomparably the best school, how- 
ever, for the advanced American student, would be a year or 
more spent at the Zodlogical Laboratory at Naples. It is hoped 
that the means may be found in the United States to engage a 
table and send a promising working naturalist to Naples. 
In this connection the proposed permanent zoological laboratory 
in connection with the work of the U.S. Fish Commission, at Wood's 
Holl, is of interest. It is designed to erect a permanent building, 
with work-rooms, large tanks and all the apparatus for studying 
the habits and development of marine animals, from s arks and 
the food-fishes down to the minutest forms of life. A steamer of 
1000 tons is now building especially designed for deep-sea dredg- 
ing in the Atlantic ocean. She is to be fitted with electric lights 
which can be lowered 500 fathoms, so as to light up the sea-bot- 
tom. With these appliances and means for investigation, it only 
remains to furnish the men who can make the best use of such 
grand facilities, and produce work like that which has emanated 
from Naples and Roscoff. 
The National Academy of Sciences has, at present, ninety- 
six members and four honorary members. The possible number 
of members is one hundred. There are nine foreign associates. 
The principal localities which furnish the members and honorary 
members are as follows: Washington, 15; Philadelphia, 13; Bos- 
ton and neighborhood, 13; New York and neighborhood, 12; 
New Haven, 12; San Francisco and neighborhood, 4; Princeton, 
; Baltimore and St. Louis each 2. The condition of election to 
the National Academy is original work done, as in the academies 
of sciences of Europe. A much more rigid scrutiny is now given 
to the claims of candidates than was the case at the time of the 
organization of the Academy. No person can now be elected to 
membership who cannot show a record of original work of a high 
standard. A few of our ablest scientists are, however, not yet 
members, but their election is only a question of time. . By the 
