Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1892 [PAGE 281]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

STATE LABORATORY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

To the Trustees of the University. GENTLEMEN: In conformity to the recommendation of a special committee on the status of the State Laboratory of Natural History, whose report was made to you June 8, 1892, and in anticipation of your action on t h a t recommendation, I beg to submit the following general report on the operations of the Laboratory during the two years just past. The functions of the Laboratory, as most recently defined by the legislature in the law of 1885, are the making of a natural history survey of the state, the supply of natural history specimens to the state museum,, the state educational institutions, and the public schools, and the publication of a systematic series of reports on the zoology and the cryptogamic botany of the state. Its operations now cover, under authorization of the same law, those of the State Entomologist, which were described by t h e law establishing t h a t office in 1867 to be the investigation of the entomology of the state (particularly the history of insects injurious to horticulture and agriculture in Illinois), the collection of a cabinet of insects to be deposited in the University of Illinois, and the preparation of biennial reports of entomological researches and discoveries made at the office. The work of the establishment is further necessarily guided to a considerable extent by the appropriation laws in force; and by authority of these laws we are publishing, in addition to the two series of reports above mentioned, a third series of miscellaneous articles, containing only original work on the natural history of the state, issued in the form of bulletins of the Laboratory. Our operations during the past two years have been also greatly influenced by legislation concerning the Columbian Exposition, by which it is made our duty to exhibit the methods and the results of the work of the Laboratory. The State Board of Exposition Commissioners looks tothis institution, in fact, for a display of the zoology of the state, prepared and arranged with special reference to our work.

ORGANIZATION.

The regular Laboratory force, to July, 1891, consisted of the undersigned, serving as Director and State Entomologist: Professor Burrill, of the University, as botanist; C. A. Hart, office entomologist: John Marten, field entomologist; A. M. Westergren, artist; and Mary J. Snyder, secretary and stenographer. During a part of this year, H. S. Brode, of t h e University, served as zoological assistant, H. C. Forbes as librarian, and S. Shiga as janitor. The same staff was continued to July, 1892, with the substitution of Miss Lilly M. Hart as artist in place of Mr. Westergren. Since July, we havehad engaged on regular laboratory work, in addition to the foregoing, but with the exception of Professor Burrill, Philip M. Hucke in entomology, succeeded by W. A. Snow. We have further employed on the preparation of the zoological exhibit of the Laboratory at the Columbian Exposition, C. F. Adams, taxidermist, and Hugo Kahl as his assistant; H. E. Summers, entomologist; F. M Woodruff and Ernest Forbes, ornithological