NOTES AND LITERATURE 



bv fourth 



MARINE BIOLOGY 



Papers from the Tortugas Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington, Vol. I, 191 pp., Vol. II, 325 pp. (Carnegie In- 

 stitution of Washington Publications No. 102 and 103, 1908.) 



The first collection of memoirs published in the name of the 

 laboratory itself, from this practically tropical marine station, 

 is highly creditable to the students who made the researches, to 

 the director of the laboratory, Dr. A. G. Mayer, and to the great 

 Institution which, on the financial side, has made the studies 

 possible. Still more it is an impressive embodiment of the per- 

 ception and conception that the sea is a vast, inexhaustible nine' 

 of the raw material out of which biological science is con- 

 structed; and that this material can be transformed into finished, 

 useful product only on the ground to which it is native. Such 

 writings drive home the truth with special force that would we 

 really know nature we must go where nature is ; we must study 

 her in her home. 



The two volumes contain nineteen papers i 

 naturalists, and the range of topics is almost as wide as the field 

 of marine zoology. Yet nearly every one of these papers con- 

 tains something, some of them many things, that a biologist who 

 daily breathes the air of a large, expansive biological philosop n 

 will want to make memorandum of for future use. 



The apparel of the matter presented approaches, though does 

 not reach, perfection. The most serious defect in the miter gar- 

 ments is the lack of aid to general consultation. Not on y is 

 there no alphabetical index, but the list of papers at the begin- 

 ning of each volume is without page references, so on. mu> 

 hunt through the volume for any paper he may want to consu ^ 

 The principle of the greatest good to the greatest number is 

 against allowing scientific books, especially, to go out wanting 

 such useful incidentals as these. The numberings and letter- 

 ings of some of the illustrations are too small and indistinct to 

 be easily read by artificial light. 



Defects in some of the inner garments are more unfortunate 

 than any in the outer. It is not necessary as one of the ant mr> 

 seems to think, to "investigate into" a subject. To just inves 1- 



