Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/515

Rh sheltered water or within safe distance of harbors, and the strong tide sweeps which are familiar to the collector at many of our other laboratories are not present here, except in one or two points, hence the fear of being carried away from the collecting ground never disturbs one.

A mile from the laboratory is the site of the Old Tide Mill, now no more, but represented by the rapids which served in former years to turn the wheels of the mill. The open sea is led in communication with a large tidal pond by a long, narrow cove, at the narrowest portion of which the old mill once rested. Through these narrows and over the rocks the tide rushes at twelve knots an hour into the pool at rising tide and out again at falling tide. Beneath these rocks is a veritable curiosity shop for the novice and an Eldorado for the biologist. An invoice from the overturning of a single stone, in genera, is given as follows: Tethya, Cliona, Tubularia, Clava, Metridium, Asterias, Cribrella, Ophiopholis, Ophioglypha, Strongylocentrotus, Pentacta, Tetrastemma, Lepidonotus, Spirorbis, Membranipora, Balanus, Pagurus, Cancer, Carcinus, Idothea, Purpura, Æolis, Molgula, Leptoclinum and Amaroucium. The most fastidious could scarcely ask for a greater galaxy.

Across the cove and opposite the mill-site is a fishermen's village. Here are brought in, from the open water and the sounds, fish of all descriptions. Aside from the food fishes, such as rock cod, hake, pollock and the like, these men may, at the request of the laboratory, bring back numbers of sand-sharks, rays and dog-fish, the "candles" or egg-cases of which afford possibilities for embryological studies, both descriptive and experimental, hitherto scarcely recognized. The abundance of the material supplied by these fishermen is taken advantage of by Professor F. D. Lambert, who maintains a supply station for zoological material in connection with the laboratory on Harpswell. Nowhere, to the writer's knowledge, is such an abundant supply of choice material made available to the zoologist.

Nearer the laboratory, on the sandy shores of a neighboring island. Nereis and Sipunculus may be dug in large numbers. Cerebratulus, represented by two species, one being the giant form, occurs near the "bridge," while Balanoglossus, Pholas, Zirphæa and other interesting and important forms, from the point of view of the experimentalist, are to be found in the same vicinity. But it is impossible to go on. One would of necessity give a catalogue of the fauna of Casco Bay if he desired to do the matter justice.

The history of the laboratory is brief. The late Professor Lee, of Bowdoin College, insisted upon the desirability of establishing a station for the study of marine forms in the Gulf of Maine, and specifically in Casco Bay. In 1898, Professor Kingsley, together with a band of students from Tufts College, leased a cottage near the present site and