ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
75 
OCELLATED STING RAY AND HER FIVE NEWLY BORN YOUNG 
Photograph by John Tee-Van. 
compared with old and highly diversified civili¬ 
zation. But the detection and analysis of these 
requires resident study or permanent stations, 
as the English naturalist, A. R. Wallace, long 
ago insisted. Expeditions, traveling rapidly 
over the country, appear more adventurous or 
romantic, and often return with very large col¬ 
lections ; but anyone who has occasion to study 
the specimens so collected, must keenly realize 
the lack of biological information. 
“For all these reasons, the Tropical Research 
Station in British Guiana, established by Mr. 
William Beebe, is certain to become classical 
ground. Not only is the station most favorably 
situated for research, but it is securing the in¬ 
terest and cooperation of some of the most bril¬ 
liant American naturalists. Although much 
work has already been done, it represents no 
more than a minute inroad on the resources of 
the locality. But whatever may be accomplished 
hereafter, it will not often happen that any 
more interesting story will be written than that 
by Dr. W. M. Wheeler on the insects associated 
with the plant Tachigalia.”. (Zoological. So¬ 
ciety’s Zoologica, Vol. III. Nos. 3-11). 
KARTABO FISH LIFE* 
By William Beebe 
F ISH and their life have been summed up 
in a masterly way in a single sentence :f 
“Moving with great freedom in three di¬ 
mensions in a medium that supports them and 
is very uniform and constant, able in most cases 
to get plenty of food without fatiguing exertions 
and to dispense with it for considerable periods 
if it is scarce, multiplying usually in great 
abundance so that the huge infantile mortality 
hardly counts, rarely dying a natural death but 
usually coming with their strength unabated to 
a violent end, fishes hold their own in the strug¬ 
gle for existence without much in the way of 
mental endowment. Their brain has more to do 
^Tropical Research Station, Contribution No. 115. 
-(-Thompson; “The Outline of Science,” p. 156. 
