BIONOMtCAL INVESTIGATION OF THE NORFOLK BROADS. 663 
some line of work by which to carry out the objects of the 
Laboratory. 
The ultimate problem, as I conceive it, of a Fresh-water Biological 
Station should be the Bionomics of the district it serves, and the 
question for me to decide was how that problem was to be attacked, 
and in looking through the literature upon the subject, it appeared 
to me that the most direct assault had been made in America. Now 
the chief object of most of the American stations has been to 
advance Fishery questions, and some of the State Fishery Com- 
missions and Universities and occasionally the United States 
Commission of Fish and Fisheries have instituted co-operative 
research into bionomical problems, some of the stations having 
been actually inaugurated for this purpose. 
For instance, in the Biennial Report of the University of Illinois 
Prof. Forbes lays down the objects of the Station thus : — “ To put 
a foundation of precise and comprehensive knowledge of the 
system of aquatic life under the practical art of the fish culturist 
and further to study the forms of life, both animal and vegetable, 
in all their stages of a great river system as represented in 
carefully selected typical localities. This study must include their 
distinguishing characters, their classification and variations, their 
local and general distribution and abundance ; their behaviour, 
characteristics and life histories; their mutual relationships and 
interactions as living associates, and the interactions likewise 
between them and the inanimate forms of matter and of energy 
in the midst of which they live. We are, in short, to do what 
is possible to us to unravel and to elucidate in general and in 
detail the system of aquatic life in a considerable district in the 
interior of North America.” 
With these objects in view various sub-stations were fixed upon 
in the Illinois districts, and the physical and botanical characters 
of these sub-stations were noted. Work has been done on the 
Protozoa, Rotifera, Worms, Crustacea, Insects and Plankton of the 
district by various naturalists, and papers on the various groups 
have been produced. 
With all respect to the authors, I think they have paid more 
attention to their species than to the local distribution of those 
species, and there appears to be much required before the 
bionomic objects of the station are in a fair way to being carried out. 
