It was no great thing to discover this paucity, which, indeed, fairly beckoned the discoverer. The great thing was to supply the deficiency, and this was what Dr. Dohrn determined to do. He selected Naples as the best location for the laboratory he proposed to found, because of its climate and its location beside the teeming waters of the Mediterranean. He organized a laboratory; he called about him a corps of able assistants; he made the Marine Biological Laboratory at Naples famous, the Mecca of all biological eyes throughout the world. It was not all done in a day. It was far enough from being done without opposition and discouragement; but these are matters of history which Dr. Dohrn now prefers not to dwell upon. Suffice it that the result aimed at was finally achieved, and in far greater measure than could at first be hoped for. And from that day till this Naples has been the centre of that branch of biological inquiry which has for its object the investigation of problems best studied with material gathered from the sea. And this, let me hasten to add, includes far more than a mere study of the life histories of marine animals and plants as such. It includes problems of cell activity, problems of heredity, life problems of many kinds, having far wider horizons than the mere question as to how a certain fish or crustacean lives and moves and has its being. Dr. Dohrn's chief technical associates are all Germans, like their leader, but, like him also, all gifted with a polyglot mastery of tongues that has stood them in good stead in their intercourse with the biologists of many nationalities who came to work at the laboratory. I must not pause to dwell upon the personnel of the staff in general, but there is one other member who cannot be overlooked even in the most casual survey of the work of the institution. One might almost as well forget Dr. Dohrn himself as to overlook Signor Lo Bianco, chief of the collecting department. Signor Bianco it is who, having expert knowledge of the haunts and habits of every manner of marine creature, can direct his fishermen where to find and how to secure whatever rare specimen any worker at the laboratory may desire. He it is, too, who, by studying old methods and inventing new ones, has learned how to preserve the delicate forms for subsequent study in lifelike ensemble that no one else can quite equal. Signor Bianco it is, in short, who is the indispensable right-hand man of the institution in all that pertains to its practical working outside the range of the microscope. Each night Signor Lo Bianco directs his band of fishermen as to what particular specimens are most to be sought after next day to meet the needs of the workers in the laboratory. Before sunrise each day, weather permitting, the little scattered fleet of boats is far out on the Bay of Naples; for the surface collecting, which furnishes a large share of the best material,