August Dohrn, his first two papers, published in his eighteenth year, were upon Hemiptera. Until 1881 his work was mostly concerned with the insects and other arthropods including his monograph on the Pantopoda for the Fauna and Flora of the Bay of Naples. However, as early as 1876, appeared the first of Dohrn's brilliant and suggestive papers on the origin of the vertebrates. Working upon the basis of embryological studies in such forms as the Ascidians, Amphioxus, the
Cyclostomes, sharks, bony-fishes, and other vertebrates, Dohrn traced the phylogeny of the vertebrates to the annelid worms. Beyond their theoretical bearing upon a question still debatable, his discoveries constitute substantial additions to comparative anatomy and embryology.
The investigators at the station find intellectual and esthetic enjoyment in historic Naples and its neighborhood. Among the marbles and bronzes of the National Museum one finds such masterpieces as the Hera Farnese and the Narcissus. In Pompeii the uncovered auditorium and the uncurtained stage of the great theater seem to voice the awful tragedy of 79 in spite of the roses and larkspurs blooming
