The particular favor with which football, baseball, and track athletics have always been regarded has not prevented a healthy interest in other sports. Though cricket and wicket died somewhere about 1872, for the _Chronicle_ remarked in 1875 that not "even the ghost of a cricket bat" had been seen for two years, and football "was in its decline," baseball was exceedingly popular and a general interest in boating was developing which promised to "equal if not supplant it in popular favor." Shells were purchased, entertainments for the new Boating Association were given, and for a time the new sport flourished. But the nautical resources of the Huron and Whitmore Lake were all too slender and after a few years the enthusiasm died, though occasionally talk of a Varsity crew springs up. Tennis came into vogue about 1880. An Association was established as early as 1883 and we have it, once more on the _Chronicle's_ carefully qualified authority, that "athletics in general have given way to lawn tennis to a certain extent." The Tennis Association was merged, with the other separate athletic bodies, into the general Athletic Association in 1890, and by 1897 when Michigan first participated in the Western Inter-collegiate tennis matches, the members of the team were awarded the Varsity letter. Henry T. Danforth, '03; H.P. Wherry, '03; R.G. St. John, '06_l_, and Reuben G. Hunt, '06_l_, were members of the four teams which led the West in the years from 1901 to 1904, the last championship until 1919, when Walter Wesbrook, '21, captured the singles, and with Nicholas Bartz, Jr., '20, the doubles at Chicago. The return to the Conference also gave a great impetus to the development of basket ball as a major sport. Though Michigan's first teams have not been remarkably successful, the players are now awarded the Varsity "M," and interest in the contests is growing rapidly, partly because the game itself is fast and exciting, demanding even greater quickness and stamina than football, and partly because the season fills in the interval between the end of the football and the opening of the baseball and track seasons in the spring. A swimming team has also been organized under a competent coach, but it is probable that no great progress will be made until the completion of the tanks in the Union and the Gymnasium. The women of the University have not been far behind the men in the development of athletics. Not only have they always been loyal supporters of the University in inter-collegiate contests, but they have their own organized athletic interests which have been no small factor in the development of the distinctive life of the women in the University. This has come largely through Barbour Gymnasium, completed in 1897, and the Palmer Athletic Field for women, which was purchased some twelve years later.