Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1894 [PAGE 303]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE ILLINOIS STATE LABORATORY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

To the Trustees of the University of Illinois. GENTLEMEN: In accordance with your requirement, as expressed in your action concerning the status of the State Laboratory of Natural History, taken June 8, 1892, I beg to submit the following report on the work of the Laboratory during the two years just passed. The points of principal interest in our recent operations are: (1) the Columbian Exposition exhibit of t h e zoology of Illinois, made by the Laboratory in 1893 under the auspices of the State Board of World's Fair Commissioners, and the accumulations of material coming into our possession at the close of the exposition: (2) the establishment, near Havana, conjointly with the University, in 1894, of a biological station for t h e continuous investigation of the aquatic life of the Illinois River and its dependent waters; and (3) an elaborate experimental work done this year with measures for the destruction of the chinch bug, and especially for the dissemination of the contagious diseases of t h a t insect, undertaken by the laboratory staff, with the cooperation of the Agricultural Experiment Station.

COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION EXHIBIT.

Our zoological exhibit, occupying 3,000 square feet of floor space in the Illinois State Building, at Jackson Park, was so planned as to present the main and most attractive features of the native animal life of the state, and at t h e same time to illustrate the operations of the State Laboratory of Natural History, and of the state entomologist's office associated with it. The exhibit was thus limited to specimens of the birds, fishes and insects of the state. The relations of the Laboratory to t h e University of Illinois were shown by the position of this exhibit—immediately beside t h a t of the university college of science, and opposite the exhibits of the college of agriculture and of the Agricultural Experiment Station, with only an aisle intervening. The leading features of our display were a most excellent collection of the birds of the state and of their eggs; a series of entomological collections, scientific, educational, and economic; a model economic entomologist's office and insectary; and a nearly complete display of the fishes of Illinois in alcohol. The entomological collections were shown in connection with t h e entomologist's office, which contained 540 square feet in one room, with an annex 20 feet long and 11 feet wide for an insectary. Into this room were put a select and carefully arranged equipment for first-class work in all departments of technical and economic entomology, sufficient for t h e use of a chief entomologist and two assistants, including furniture, a section of t h e laboratory library, a part of the library catalogue, record books with examples of the records, specimens prepared and arranged in the various ways useful for reference, apparatus for collecting and experiment, microscopes, a drawing equipment, and the like, making of t h e