152
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Education Committee) and the Kent and Essex Sea-fisheries
Committee. A comparatively small sum from such a source
would suffice ; for the scheme, when once started, would be
supported to a large extent by friends and members of the Club."
The "comparatively small sum" does not seem to have been
forthcoming and the proposed station was never started. There
is no reason, however, why the subject should not be broached
again, and I therefore propose to say a few words about these
biological stations or laboratories, which may be cither of the
fixed or of the movable type.
The establishment of fixed or permanent biological labora-
tories of various kinds—marine, fresh-water, desert, etc.—has
now been carried out in many countries, on many different
scales and in a variety of ways. Sometimes they are govern-
mental or semi-governmental institutions; very often they are
maintained by universities, and sometimes they owe their
existence to special associations or even to private munificence.
So far as I know, no Field Club or similar society has yet at-
tempted to run such an institution even in the most modest form,
although for some branches of local biological work, such as an
intensive study of the waters of a limited area, or even of a single
lake, a small permanent laboratory would be extremely useful.
In a county like Essex, a fixed station is perhaps scarcely neces-
sary for the investigation of the inland waters, but for the coastal
and estuarine waters such a station would be of the greatest help
in the study of the marine and brackish-water flora and fauna.
In counties where large lakes or other considerable stretches of
water occur, a permanent inland station as near to the water's
edge as possible would be most desirable. Unfortunately, the
one fixed laboratory of this kind which, through private initiative
and expense, did exist in this country, namely, the Sutton Broad
Laboratory in Norfolk, has been closed for some years and is,
I understand, never likely to be opened again. It must be
admitted that the prospect of any Field Club being able to main-
tain a permanent biological station seems very remote at present.
Possibly it is too much to expect any one local society to maintain
such a station, but the idea is worth keeping in mind, and then it
may, in some unforeseen way, bring about its own realization.
There can be no doubt that it is the other kind of biological
laboratory, i.e. of the movable or travelling type, which comes.