Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1892 [PAGE 282]

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STATE LABORATORY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

285

<x>llectors; F. M. McElfresh, entomological assistant; and C. T. Wilder, succeeded by J. E. Hallinen, engaged in making a collection of the fishes of the state—all this last group being paid by the World's Fair Commissioners. The force actually under engagement at any one t i m e has varied from six to sixteen.

INVESTIGATION.

The investigations of the Laboratory during the period covered by this report have followed the same general direction as during the two years preceding, but with a closer concentration on entomology than I like—a defect which I hope to avoid hereafter by changes in organization. Progress in our knowledge of the general zoology of the state has been immediately furthered by a considerable amount of work done on waters outside our limits, by myself and my assistants, during our vacations, under the auspices and at the expense of the United States Fish Commission. One able to appreciate the fact that the life of no region can be thoroughly studied without a knowledge of t h a t of other regions, adjacent and remote, and t h a t in those departments of natural history where new forms must be described it is indispensable t h a t opportunity should be had for a comparison of collections made over a large extent of country, will understand the advantages to our own studies which this extension of our aquatic work outside the state must bring us in the end. The parties kept in the field ever since last fall on behalf of the Exposition collections, have also added considerable material and information available for the purposes of our natural history survey. I need, however, as I have needed for some years, a zoological assistant whose time should go continuously to the% zoological survey outside of entomology. In the entomological department of the survey, Exposition work has likewise aided us immensely. The collections and various studies which this work has required in all parts of the state have given us a mass of facts and material equivalent, I think, to the product of five years of our ordinary operations. The principal trips made by the entomological assistants, for these collections and investigations, are thirty-two in number, and cover, for the two years, 298 days' absence in the field at a distance from Champaign. The ornithological field work includes a trip of two months to Louisiana, made by Mr. Adams for the collection of Illinois birds in their winter quarters, three weeks' shooting in southern* Illinois by two assistants, five more by one assistant in the northern part of the state, besides six weeks' collecting in Champaign county. In ichthyology one or two men have been out continuously for three and a half months. Our outside aquatic operations include a journey to Yellowstone Park and western Montana by Mr. Brode and myself, covering five weeks in 1891, and trips by myself and two assistants to Geneva, Delavan, and Winnebago lakes, in Wisconsin, occupying four weeks in all. I need not say t h a t our trips of this description were not mere expeditions for the collection of specimens, but t h a t they were attended and followed by field and laboratory studies of the waters, their surroundings, and their contents. I may add, under this head, brief mention of the experimental work in economic entomology done at my office. The most important subject of precise investigation belonging here is t h a t of the contagious diseases of insects, upon which we have worked almost continuously in the experimental way since the spring of 1891. Artificial cultures of the fungus parasite found most efficient for the propagation of such diseases have been made on a large scale, and supplied to all applicants from this state in sufficient quantities to enable them to start disease among injurious insects on their premises. We also experimented last year with the fruit bark beetle, the white grubs, and the Hessian fly, with a view to clearing up doubtful points in t h e life history of each; and with respect to the species last mentioned,