CONTENTS

\

INVITED REVIEW

EHINGER, BERNDT E. J.

Retinal circuitry and clinical ophthalmology 333

BEHAVIOR

HlDAKA, MlCHIO

Nematocyst discharge, histoincompatibility, and the formation of swee- per tentacles in the coral Galaxea fascicularis 350

STEELE, CRAIG W.

Non-random, seasonal oscillations in the orientation and locomotor activity of sea catfish (Arius felis) in a multiple-choice situation .... 359

DEVELOPMENT AND REPRODUCTION

ANDERSON, SUSAN L., WALLIS H. CLARK, JR.^ AND ERNEST S. CHANG

Multiple spawning and molt synchrony in a free spawning shrimp (57- cyonia ingentis: Penaeoidea) 377

PETRAITIS, PETER S.

Females inhibit males' propensity to develop into simultaneous her- maphrodites in Capitella species I (Polychaeta) 395

WEIS, VIRGINIA M., DOUGLAS R. KEENE, AND LEO W. Buss

Biology of hydractiniid hydroids. 4. Ultrastructure of the planula of Hydractinia echinata 403

ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

LONSDALE, DARCY J., AND JEFFREY S. LEVINTON

Latitudinal differentiation in embryonic duration, egg size, and newborn survival in a harpacticoid copepod : 419

.

PHYSIOLOGY

COBB, JAMES L. S.

The neurobiology of the ectoneural/hyponeural synaptic connection in

an echinoderm 432

SANGER, JOSEPH W., AND JEAN M. SANGER

Sarcoplasmic reticulum in the adductor muscles of a Bermuda scallop: comparison of smooth versus cross-striated portions 447

SILVERMAN, BARRY A., RONALD W. BERNINGER, RICHARD C. TALAMO, AND

FREDERICK B. BANG

The use of the urn cell complexes of Sipunculus nudus for the detection of the presence of mucus stimulating substances in the serum of rabbits with mucoid enteritis

461

SHORT REPORTS

CHOW, SEINEN, YASUHIKO TAKI, AND YOSHIMITSU OGASAWARA

Cryopreservation of spermatophore of the fresh water shrimp, Macro- brachium rosenbergii 471

JAFFE, LIONEL F., AND ANTHONY E. WALSBY

An investigation of extracellular electrical currents around cyanobacterial filaments 476

ROBINSON, B. W., AND R. W. DOYLE

Trade-off between male reproduction (amplexus) and growth in the amphipod Gammarus lawrencianus • 482

Index to Volume 168 489

Volume 168 Number 3

SYMPOSIUM SUPPLEMENT TO THE

BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN

PUBLISHED BY THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY

C. B. Metz, Editor; P. L. Clapp, Assistant Editor

THE NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION AND

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY:

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF BIOLOGY

CONTENTS

GROSS, PAUL R.

Preface 1

NINETEENTH-CENTURY BACKGROUND, AND PERSONALITIES

GROEBEN, CHRISTIANE

Anton Dohrn — the statesman of Darwinism 4

MAIENSCHEIN, JANE

Agassiz, Hyatt, Whitman, and the birth of the Marine Biological Lab- oratory 26

MONROY, ALBERTO, AND CHRISTIANE GROEBEN

The "new" embryology at the Zoological Station and at the Marine Biological Laboratory 35

REINGOLD, NATHAN, AND JOEL N. BODANSKY

The sciences, 1850-1900, a North Atlantic perspective . 44

THE EVOLUTION OF DISCIPLINES

GROSS, PAUL R.

Laying the ghost: embryonic development, in plain words 62

EBERT, JAMES D.

Cell interactions: the roots of a century of research 80

RUSSELL-HUNTER, W. D.

An evolutionary century at Woods Hole: instruction in invertebrate zoology 88

FANTINI, BERNARDINO

The sea urchin and the fruit fly: cell biology and heredity, 1900-1910 99

ALLEN, GARLAND E.

Heredity under an embryological paradigm: the case of genetics and embryology , 107

Continued on Cover Two

GHIRETTI, FRANCESCO

Comparative physiology and biochemistry at the Zoological Station of Naples 122

COHEN, SEYMOUR S.

Some struggles of Jacques Loeb, Albert Mathews, and Ernest Just at

the Marine Biological Laboratory 127

FLOREY, ERNST

The Zoological Station at Naples and the neuron: personalities and encounters in a unique institution . . 137

YOUNG, J. Z.

Cephalopods and neuroscience 153

BENNETT, M. V. L.

Nicked by Occam's razor: unitarianism in the investigation of synaptic transmission . 159

TOMAS, CARMELO R.

Marine botany and ecology at Stazione Zoologica 168

PAST AND FUTURE: SHORTER COMMUNICATIONS ON POLICY

AND POLITICS

EBERT, JAMES D.

Carnegie Institution of Washington and marine biology: Naples, Woods Hole, and Tortugas 172

EBERT, JAMES D.

Evolving institutional patterns for excellence: a brief comparison of the organization and management of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Marine Biological Laboratory 183

MAIENSCHEIN, JANE

First impressions: American biologists at Naples 187

MAIENSCHEIN, JANE

Early struggles at the Marine Biological Laboratory over mission and money 192

RUSSELL-HUNTER, W. D.

The Woods Hole laboratory site: history and future ecology 197

RUSSELL-HUNTER, W. D.

From Woods Hole to the world: The Biological Bulletin 200

MIRALTO, ANTONIO

What laboratories for what science? 203

Index 205

Reference: Biol. Bull 168 (suppl.): 1-3. (June, 1985)

LIBRARY

PREFACE

The Stazione Zoologica of Naples was founded in 1 872; the Marine Biological Laboratory received its first students and investigators in Woods Hole during the summer of 1888. That each has survived is surprising; that they have survived these tumultuous hundred years of science not merely intact, but with steady growth of influence worldwide, is remarkable. There were close and cooperative relationships among leading scientists of the two laboratories during the decades between 1890 and the outbreak of the first World War. Cooperative relationships have continued, but the years of the last century's turn were momentous ones for what became "modern" biology. What went on at the Stazione and at the MBL is thus of great interest as intellectual history and for the lessons to be learned about the role of institutions, as such, in the advance of science.

In October of 1984, a meeting was held at the Stazione's ecology laboratory on the Island of Ischia (which laboratory was once a villa belonging to Anton Dohrn, the Stazione's founder). With timely assistance from the Commonwealth Fund, the Klingenstein Fund, and Italian agencies supporting the Stazione, a group of European and American scholars — historians of science and biologists in about equal numbers — met to review the events, the ideas, and the personalities of a hundred years of biology at the two places. As is generally known, the two ostensibly "marine" laboratories have had impact on far more than marine sciences in that interval.

The participants could barely scratch the surface of an immense subject, many of whose source materials are still unexamined. But there was general agreement on its importance and on the opportunities for new and significant research. Thus the Ischia meeting and its contributions were meant to serve rather more than the normal purposes of a scholarly gathering: they were and are meant to be a goad and catalyst for new historical research, and to act thus upon working biologists with a taste for history as well as upon historians of biology and medicine.

Such efforts are rarely successful: historians and experimental scientists (and administrators of science) often fail to communicate. They have different styles of work and different imperatives. The specialties have diverged greatly during their professionalization of the past twenty-five years. The high standards of one group are not necessarily of interest or importance to the other; and what is inexcusable as form for one can be perfectly acceptable to another scholar.

The Ischia meeting was, nevertheless, a success. It included contributions from both categories of participant that were exciting and novel to the other: the speakers did not speak past one another. Catalysis of new projects was in the air. The auguries for new writing in time for the MBL's 1988 Centennial are strong.

This volume contains the written version of papers presented viva voce at Ischia. Their publication is essential for the catalytic purposes mentioned. This posed, however, a problem inherent in the different working styles of historians, archivists, experimental scientists, and administrators. We saw the choice, initially, as one of forcing all the papers into one or the other mold: that of an historical journal or that of a biological journal such as THE BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN. In the end we rejected both, for it seemed to us more important to communicate the events and flavor of the Ischia meeting accurately than to dress up the biologists' presentations to fit the style of historical scholarship or the reverse. The chapters of this volume

PREFACE

Ischia participants left to right: J. D. Ebert, J. Maienschein, M. V. Bennett, G. Allen, C. Groeben, P. Gross, N. Reingold, J. Z. Young, E. Florey. Mrs. Florey, W. D. Russell-Hunter, E. Cohen. S. Cohen. A. Monroy, and F. Ghiretti. Not shown: B. Fantini.

are, therefore, si{i generis: they are what went on at Ischia, with transduction only from the spoken to the written word.

The well-disposed reader will therefore, I hope, tolerate what might drive a proper editor to fury: as many different forms of bibliographic citation, nearly, as there are papers, and some abrupt transitions of purpose and point of view. So be it: we believe that there is to be gained an invaluable sense of the importance of the subject to different biological interests. Much will be found here that is new, and some well-known stories, or stories assumed to be well-known, are re-told with new insights. The price of novelty is a much greater intrusion of the personalities of the writers than is allowed today in most professional journals.

The papers as printed follow fairly closely, but not exactly, the order of presentation at the meeting. The broad design, established initially by S. S. Cohen and A. Monroy, the organizers, was for an opening session on late-nineteenth century science in general, followed by developments in the characteristic disciplines of the two laboratories: zoology, embryology, genetics, biochemistry, neurophysiology, botany, ecology. These sessions were succeeded by discussions of particular institu- tional policies and problems, e.g., the role of teaching and the funding of research. There were, finally, a number of informal discussions of present-day issues of organization and policy. This sequence is maintained, on the whole, in the volume.

The participants are grateful to the supporting agencies, and to the Naples and Ischia staff members for their cooperation and characteristic warm hospitality. I am personally grateful to my colleagues. Garland Allen and Jane Maienschein, for their

PREFACE 3

indispensable assistance in the substantive — and hence serious — editorial work. We all hope that publication of these proceedings will attract more of our colleagues to the subject, and to exploring riches in the archives of both laboratories. There are powerful continuities of purpose underlying the key ideas of modern biology, and those emerge strongly from study of the two institutions. Such continuities do not necessarily emerge from preoccupation, however intense and skilled, with the current literature of biology. Yet there is reason to believe that understanding those driving forces (and, yes, intellectual prejudices) can be helpful, perhaps essential, for wise decisions about tomorrow's research directions in the laboratory. If the continuities are communicated even to a few readers of this volume, as they have largely ceased to be communicated in graduate biological education, then the efforts of organizing the meeting and assembling this volume will have been rewarded.

Paul R. Gross

Marine Biological Laboratory

March, 1985

Reference: Biol. Bull. 168 (suppl.): 4-25. (June, 1985)

ANTON DOHRN— THE STATESMAN OF DARWINISM

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the death of Anton Dohrn

CHRISTIANE GROEBEN Stazione Zoologica, Villa Comunalc, 80121 Naples. Italy

ABSTRACT

Based on personal accounts from the Archives of the Stazione, this paper traces the development of Anton DohnVs personality. His inner motivations, his personal experiences, and the external factors and traditions that led to the foundation of the Naples Zoological Station are described.

Dohrn strove for a greater degree of organization in science. The paper investigates the factors helping to achieve this goal and outlines the influence that the Naples Station had on the foundation of other institutions.

DISCUSSION

In youth we plume our fancy's wings

To flit from sun to sun; At length we fold them up. and then

A little work is done. Compared with our imagined deeds

How small and poor it seems! But then — one little act outweighs

A thousand glorious dreams.

Charles Grant1

Anton Dohrn (1840-1909), founder of the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, once said: "To create, to organize, to develop — this is my need, even passion."2 It is on these motivations that I shall focus in the following presentation.

The Naples Zoological Station was an offspring of Anton Dohrn"s personality. Dohrn has been denned as "an independent pioneer of science politics" (Heuss),3 "a catalyst in the encouragement and stimulation of creative ideas" (I. Miiller, 1975, p. 193), and also as being gifted with "an unusually sure eye for the significance of the different sections of our science, and for the way in which they interrelate and complement each other"" (Th. Boveri, 1910, p. 31). Dohrn"s personality dominated and catalyzed the activity and the work carried out at the Station, from its founding until long after his death in 1909.

In 1975 O. Skalova, in her sociological case study of the Naples Zoological Station, contacted 2000 guest scientists who had worked at the Station during the previous 40 years. From the 650 who replied it was clear that one of the most highly rated factors was "the creative atmosphere"" prevailing in the laboratory (Skalova, 1975, pp. 26-28). This atmosphere undoubtedly went a long way to making the Zoological Station a "permanent Congress of Zoologists,"' as Theodor Boveri called it in his 1910 commemoration of Anton Dohrn (Th. Boveri, 1910, p. 40).

I have long attempted to discover the factors that led to, or that help to maintain, the much-discussed "creative atmosphere"" of the Naples Zoological Station. It was

ANTON DOHRN 5

a peculiar condition in which most scientists became engulfed but could not explain. It emanated in the first instance from Anton Dohrn. The intriguing question is how this catalyzing process actually worked, or better, how the personality of Anton Dohrn brought about such a sense of creativity in others. It is also important to analyze the external and internal factors, that contributed to the foundation of a research institute where, in the words in Hans Driesch in 1909, "9/u> of all basic work in modern zoology has been done'" (Driesch, 1909, p. 514).

Much has been written on the foundation and the history of the Naples Station (Kofoid, 1910; Groeben and Miiller, 1975; Miiller, 1975, 1976; Partsch, 1980; Miiller and Groeben, 1984). In 1940, Theodor Heuss published an exhaustive biography of Anton Dohrn (Heuss, 1962); and the scientist Dohrn and his relation to the zoology of his time has been excellently described by Alfred Kiihn (1950). Yet, the question of the influence of Dohrn's personality on the scientific work of the Station remains unexplored.

Anton Dohrn's relationship with his father Carl August Dohrn (1806-1892), a well known amateur entomologist (Heuss, 1962, pp. 23-49; P. Dohrn, 1983, pp. 30-81), played an important role in forming Anton Dohrn's character. His search for acknowledgment among his peers and his essential loneliness as an adult date from his childhood, as do his liberal views, his interest in people, and his wide knowledge of literature, music, and science.

The relationship between Carl August and Anton Dohrn was difficult and tormented, ranging from heated discussions, ruptures, and disinheritance to recon- ciliation and eventually mutual respect. Dohrn was struck by his father's brilliance and knowledge, and his wide-ranging correspondence with eminent scientists. He longed to live up to his father's expectations, hoping to win his respect and love. In 1897, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Naples Zoological Station, Anton Dohrn acknowledged his debt to his father, his "intellectual protoplasma," but he also noted that in their family circle it was more important to remember quotations from Goethe or to recognize music from Beethoven, than to excel in Greek or mathematics (A. Dohrn, 1897, p. 34).

After having received a humanistic education, Dohrn studied medicine and zoology at Konigsberg, Bonn, Jena, and Berlin, obtaining his Ph.D. at Breslau in November 1865. He became Privatdozent at Jena in January 1868. To friends he admitted:

I have no vocation as a Zoologist. You see, to pass my whole day observing through glasses whether this crab has seven or eight segments, whether here lie cells with two or three nuclei, whether this tissue has grown thus or thus — this I can't do.4

He was always prone to bigger thoughts, to more grandiose schemes.

Dohrn's attitude suddenly changed, when through the influence of Ernst Haeckel at Jena in 1862, Dohrn became acquainted with Darwin's works. As he exclaimed in the letter of 1866, cited above, "[I felt] a really piercing excitement;" the once dry Zoology was no longer an end in itself, but a new tool to acquire knowledge. The way Dohrn put that new tool to use was through the study of morphology: that branch of zoology in which fields such as comparative anatomy, embryology, and physiology were used as a means of elucidating the phylogenetic history of various groups. Comparative embryology became a cornerstone of morphology, based on Haeckel's recapitulation theory: that the individual in its embryonic development passes through the major stages of its own evolutionary past. Morphology thus became one of the major ways in which zoologists sought to expand and

6 C. GROEBEN

develop Darwinian theory in the last 30 years of the nineteenth century. As a result of his conversion to evolutionary theory in the early 1860's, Dohrn promised to dedicate his whole life to Darwinism — a promise he indeed kept.

In 1865, Dohrn accompanied Haeckel on his famous expedition to Helgoland where, for the first time Dohrn studied marine organisms (Fig. 1 ). It seems to have been in Helgoland, while struggling home with buckets full of sea water, that Dohrn and Haeckel talked about a "Zoological Station" (Uschmann, 1959, p. 65). Dohrn's friendship with Haeckel ended a few years later when the younger man, influenced by Kant and F. A. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus (1866), could no longer subscribe to HaeckeFs philosophical generalizations. But familiarity with marine organisms as objects for study, and the idea of establishing a marine laboratory remained an important legacy from Haeckel for the rest of Dohrn's life.

In 1867 (July-September) and again in 1868 Dohrn went to Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, Scotland, to continue his studies on Arthropoda. There he lived as a guest of David Robertson (1806-1896), a self-taught Scottish zoologist and later founder of the Millport Biological Station (1885).

It was during this first trip to England that Dohrn, through an introduction by his father to the entomologist Henry Tibbats Stainton (1822-1892), met many English zoologists, most importantly Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), with

FIGURE 1. Excursion to Helgoland, 1865. Standing, left to right: Anton Dohrn, Jena; Richard Greef, Bonn; Ernst Haeckel, Jena. Sitting, left to right: Salverda, Delft; Pietro Marchi, Florence. (Reproduced with permission from: Uschmann, 1959, fig. 23.)

ANTON DOHRN 7

whom a close and warm friendship developed. Huxley even suggested a visit to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), but Dohrn only sent Darwin his publications at that time. This led to an exchange of letters (Dohrn did meet Darwin two years later, in September 1870; see Groeben, 1982). Dohrn also reported on his work at the annual meeting of the British Association, held that year (1868) at Dundee.

Dohrn's close ties with British scientists were to pay off in future years. During the difficult period (1870-1874) when he was trying to build the Zoological Station, Dohrn received the greatest encouragement and help from his British colleagues. Apart from the active support of Darwin and Huxley, Dohrn found a great source of strength and encouragement for his dream of a marine laboratory in the British natural history tradition and the readiness of the British to accept adventurous and even somewhat eccentric plans.

In the period after 1860, stimulated particularly by French and British exploring expeditions, general interest in the sea and its riches and in the potential of marine organisms for systematic and morphological study had increased greatly throughout Europe (Deacon, 1971; Rice and Wilson, 1980). In 1870 at the annual meeting of the British Association in Liverpool, a Committee was formed "for the purpose of promoting the foundation of zoological stations in different parts of the world" (Report, 1871; Dohrn, 1872a; Rice and Wilson, 1980). Indeed, it was this committee, through its many reports as well as notes and articles regularly published in Nature, that gave such widespread publicity in the English-speaking world to Dohrn's Stazione Zoological.

In Germany the general concepts of using marine organisms for biological research was first promoted by Johannes Miiller (1801-1858). Through his numerous visits to the North Sea (1843, 1848, 1854, and 1855) and especially the Mediterranean (in 1849 at Nice and Villefranche, 1850-52 to Trieste, in 1853 at Messina, 1856 at Cette and Nice), Miiller publicized widely the concept of marine biological research as a means of elucidating fundamental biological concepts. Miiller was a gifted teacher, with whom most of Germany's principal zoologists and physiologists had studied (Kiihn, 1950). Thus, his interest and influence was of considerable importance.

After the British Association meeting in 1868, Dohrn returned to Millport, where, together with David Robertson he constructed a portable aquarium, to take with him to Messina, Sicily, where he planned to spend the winter of 1868-69.

The Straits of Messina were famous at that time for the richness and variety of their marine fauna and flora. In 1788, Spallanzani had studied the pelagic fauna of the area, followed many years later by the German zoologist August D. Krohn (1846). And, Johannes Miiller must have conveyed his enthusiasm for seaside studies there to many of his students, since Messina soon became, according to one report, the "Mecca of the German Privat-Dozent/v> So favorable were collecting conditions at Messina, for example, that in one year (1859-60), Haeckel (also one of Miiller's students and inspired by him to do marine investigations), discovered more than 1 44 new species of Radiolaria in the straits.

Messina was thus the obvious choice for Dohrn to conduct marine studies. There Dohrn met up with his friend, the Russian zoologist Nikolai N. Mikloucho- Maclay (1848-1888), also a former pupil of Haeckel, and later to become an eminent anthropologist (Miiller, 1980). Maclay introduced Dohrn to the Russian- Polish family, de Baranowski, whose eldest daughter Marie (1856-1918) was to become Dohrn's wife in 1874.

Dohrn and Maclay rented two rooms at the Palazzo Vitale, Strada Garibaldi, right on the port, with a breathtaking view of the Straits of Messina and the coast of Calabria. They bought some chairs and had two work-benches made for them. Commenting on their simple life, Dohrn wrote in 1868:

8 C. GROEBEN

. . . and so we live, including service and meals, for 5 francs a day, much cheaper and better than at a Hotel, where we would have had to climb 3-4 floors and would also have had difficulties because of our working problems. The fishermen invade our flat and bring us lots of animals.6

The portable aquarium Dohrn had built in Scotland proved to be very valuable indeed. For the first time he could observe the breeding of crustacean eggs. However, faced with such difficulties as bad weather, lack of animal supply, and lack of literature, Dohrn realized how useful it would be for scientists to arrive and find the "table laid" for their work (Fig. 2). That is, to find on arrival instruments, rooms, service, chemicals, and books available together with records of where and when certain species could be found and useful information on local conditions, etc. In this spirit he left his equipment and diary at Messina where friends promised to take care of them. In February 1869 Dohrn could thus write to his father: "The Zoological Station of Messina has now been established. I retain it an important progress for our Science should we succeed in getting beyond the embryonic stage." Dohrn and Maclay had optimistically planned to cover the world with a network of Zoological Stations. Although Dohrn thought initially of Venice, Nice, Gibraltar, Portugal, Ceylon, Australia, and the Cape of Good Hope8, in the end Naples was all he could successfully accomplish.

The potential of marine organisms for morphological and systematic studies had already led several scientists to try to establish study facilities near the sea, e.g., the French stations at Concarneau (1859), Arcachon (1863), and Roscoff (1872). However, these were mostly field stations, connected to a University or Institute, and were not independent facilities to house a host of different sorts of investigations and a wide variety of projects.

Dohrn always acknowledged Vogt (1817-1895) as his forerunner. In 1852, Vogt had tried at Villefranche, and in 1863 at Naples, to found a research and observation station (Vogt, 1871; Dohrn, 1871, pp. 6-8; Oppenheimer, 1980). Neither had materialized, however.

Leaving Messina in April 1869, Dohrn returned to Jena for his summer term lectures and also to collect money for a small building to be constructed at Messina to house the equipment. In so doing Dohrn put to work his "creative imagination"9, a quality he was aware of possessing to an unusual degree.

Dohrn's enthusiasm for Darwinism did little to remove his dissatisfaction with Zoology — research and teaching — as it stood at that time. He felt that his interests were too wide, or Zoology at the University too narrow — to be able to continue his University career. Science in itself and scientific discoveries just didn't stimulate him, or as Th. Boveri put it (1910, p. 24):

he lacked the most elementary urge of a scientist, the urge to observe, to discover hitherto unknown facts, even if they are unknown only to the observer himself. Not that he did not acknowledge the value of new discoveries. But it did not matter to him to make them himself.

Dohrn wanted to make a contribution to advancing Darwinism that would exploit his complex personality and gifts. He once put it like this:

Proper zoological work has elements that do not appeal to me and do not at all take into account an inner need, which is to occupy myself in a practical way, to make an impact in the outside world, to be of service to others.10

And again in 1874, during one of his frequent bouts of deep depression — a heritage

ANTON DOHRN

FIGURE 2. N. N. Mikloucho-Maclay, letter to Anton Dohrn, January 1869, Messina, describing and illustrating the hardships he had to cope with in order to pursue his studies.35 (ASZN, Dohrn Archives, Ba 735)

from his mother's family — he wrote in an unfinished last will: "In the center of my existence lies, I may say, a passion for helping others, direct or indirect."

The growing interest in exploring life at sea, the need for marine organisms for research in morphology and embryology, Dohrn's own marine experiences, his championing of Darwinism, and his need to prove himself — all these currents converged into the creation of the Naples Zoological Station. Dohrn's attention had turned to Naples because he wanted to connect the Station with an aquarium open to the public, the entrance fees thus providing the means to pay a permanent assistant. Dohrn therefore had to choose a large city that attracted many tourists. Naples at that time was still one of the largest and most attractive cities of Europe with more than 500,000 inhabitants and about 30,000 tourists a year (Vogt, 1871).

In 1870 Dohrn went to Naples; with luck he overcame doubts, ignorance, and misunderstandings and persuaded the city authorities to give him, free-of-charge, a plot of land at the sea edge, in the beautiful Royal Park (today, the Villa Comunale). For his part he promised to build a Zoological Station at his own expense. Dohrn himself gives a very colorful description of his experiences with the Neapolitan authorities in his "History of the Naples Zoological Station," which he started to compile in 1895. (The unfinished manuscript is kept in the Dohrn Archives at the Stazione.)

In October, 1871, Dohrn installed himself with all his equipment and books at the Palazzo Torlonia, near the small port of Mergellina in Naples, together with the

C. GROEBEN

. . . and so we live, including service and meals, for 5 francs a day, much cheaper and better than at a Hotel, where we would have had to climb 3-4 floors and would also have had difficulties because of our working problems. The fishermen invade our flat and bring us lots of animals.6

The portable aquarium Dohrn had built in Scotland proved to be very valuable indeed. For the first time he could observe the breeding of crustacean eggs. However, faced with such difficulties as bad weather, lack of animal supply, and lack of literature, Dohrn realized how useful it would be for scientists to arrive and find the "table laid" for their work (Fig. 2). That is, to find on arrival instruments, rooms, service, chemicals, and books available together with records of where and when certain species could be found and useful information on local conditions, etc. In this spirit he left his equipment and diary at Messina where friends promised to take care of them. In February 1869 Dohrn could thus write to his father: "The Zoological Station of Messina has now been established. I retain it an important progress for our Science should we succeed in getting beyond the embryonic stage."7 Dohrn and Maclay had optimistically planned to cover the world with a network of Zoological Stations. Although Dohrn thought initially of Venice, Nice, Gibraltar, Portugal, Ceylon, Australia, and the Cape of Good Hope8, in the end Naples was all he could successfully accomplish.