Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/405

Rh or to render possible the prosecution of researches which no other institutions can undertake. Indeed, the success of any research laboratory must depend upon the efficiency of the training which its investigators have received at institutions of both instruction and research, such as the laboratories at Woods Hole, Cold Spring Harbor, Bermuda, South Harpswell and St. Andrews.

At Tortugas some of the ablest investigators of our country have been directing their attention not only to the systematic study of the rich reef fauna of the region, but mainly to problems in physiology, ecology, regeneration and embryology. We shall have space for a review of the results of a few only of these studies, selecting such as may be of the widest general interest.

Throughout the autumn and winter one of the most desolate of the Tortugas Islands is the small uninhabited Bird Key; but suddenly on a day late in April or early in May a cloud of sea-gulls gathers from far and near, and soon more than 25,000 birds are screaming over the island, struggling for nesting space.

Undeterred by the roasting heat of desert sands, the air above which rises to at least 120° F. on every sunny summer's day, or by the ceaseless shrieks of sea-gulls, Professor Watson, of Johns Hopkins University, lived nearly three months upon Bird Key. He reared the young birds and found that they could learn their way through a maze to their food. The adults could also learn to overcome obstacles in seeking to sit upon the eggs. The noddy gull builds its nest in bushes and while