2*4 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. LIV 



COMMENTS ON A RECENT CHECK-LIST 

 Research stations established in the past by scientific insti- 

 tutions, especially those in or near the tropics have generally 

 been devoted particularly to study of aquatic organisms. It was, 

 therefore, with great pleasure and with high hopes for its future 

 that naturalists all the world over have watched with keenest 

 interest the establishment and gradual development of the Trop- 

 ical Research Station of the New York Zoological Society. 



Mr. Beebe has shown great acumen in selecting his locality. 

 His facile pen has drawn the wonders of his station's environ- 

 ment in a way so splendidly vivid that I, for one, envy very 

 frankly his skill and his good fortune. These comments then are 

 offered here, on one of his recent papers, with a cordial apprecia- 

 tion of the debt which all naturalists owe to him for what should 

 in the future become the most useful workshop of its kind: in- 

 deed to be thought of always in future as bearing a relation to 

 the tropic rain-forest in the same way that one subconciously 

 recalls the Naples Station when thinking of or discussing the 

 fauna of the Mediterranean Sea. 



