" • DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 99 



study for the agricultural and forestry departments, some changes will 

 be made in the work of this division, but they do not become operative 

 until next year. A new elective in zoology will be offered, zoology 4 

 (vertebrate zoology), and an advanced course in human physiology will 

 be instituted for the home economies department. 



Little has been done by the department during the past year in the 

 Avay of College Extension work, for the reason that from the opening of 

 college in September until its close in June every member of the depart- 

 ment is fully occupied with class work. The large increase in th^ 

 number of our graduates, many of whom become teachers, and the gen- 

 eral development of interest in nature study throughout the state brings 

 to the department hundreds of inquiries each year in regard to text 

 books, laboratory methods, specimens for class use, and inquiries as to 

 reference books and other means for the determination of specimens. 

 AVe also receive yearly a large number of samples of sands, clays, marls, 

 ores, building stones, etc., with requests for examination, analysis, or 

 advice as to development and use. Some of these requests are neces- 

 sarily referred to the State Geologist, but in most cases they can be 

 attended to in our own department. The demand from teachers for 

 some guide in the study of birds has been general and insistent for 

 several years past, and hence at the request of the Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, Hon. Luther L. Wright, the writer prepared in Jan- 

 uary a little bulletin describing seventy-five common birds of the state 

 which was issued in the spring as Bulletin Number 37 of the Depart- 

 ment of Public Instruction and has just been republished as one sec- 

 tion of the larger bulletin of the same department known as "Michigan 

 Special Days." This paper consisted of thirty-five pages of printed mat- 

 ter with a few half-tones and two colored plates obtained from the 

 National Committee of Audubon Societies. This little bulletin, dis- 

 tributed solely through the Department of Public Instruction, must not 

 be confounded with the larger work on Michigan Birds which the writer 

 has had in preparation for several years past and which has just been 

 completed, but has not yet gone to the printer. This book, for it can 

 harclly be described as a bulletin, consists of something over one thou- 

 sand typewritten pages and comprises full descriptions of about three 

 hundred and thirty species of Michigan birds, together with critical 

 notes on all other species which have been attributed to the state, the 

 whole systematically arranged and provided with artificial keys for the 

 determination of specimens, and preceded by a general introduction de- 

 scribing the topography and climate of the state in so far as it in- 

 fluences bird life and bird distribution. In addition the volume con- 

 tains seventy full page plates and one hundred and fifty-two text figures. 

 It is hoped that the college can provide at once for its printing, in 

 which case it can doubtless be issued soon after the appearance of the 

 present report. 



GENERAL MUSEUM. 



The general museum was given somewhat extended mention in last 

 year's repori; and little more need be said this year, since there have been 

 few changes of importance. Numerous small but welcome accessions 

 have been made, but the crowded condition of the main hall and the 

 lack of time and assistance have prevented the arrangement and dis- 



