DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 51 



during the year, and it is believed that in spite of a considerable in- 

 crease in the number of classes and students the work has been fully 

 as efficient as heretofore. The number of students handled in the winter 

 term, however, has taxed our single laboratory beyond its limit and the 

 temporary shifts which have been resorted to should be replaced by 

 more ample accommodations before another winter. 



The most noteworthy addition to the equipment has been the purchase 

 of five new compound microscopes, with the necessary accessories, with- 

 out which the laboratory work in anatomy and zoology would not have 

 been possible. 



Aside from class and laboratory work, which occupy so large a part 

 of the time of the teaching force, much has been done in preparing 

 lantern and microscope slides for illustration and study, and the depart- 

 ment now has a collection of 490 lantern slides and about 900 micro- 

 scopic mounts. 



Work on the bulletin on the Birds of Michigan has been continued, 

 but, owing to the large amount of teaching and correspondence, progress 

 has been slow and it is impossible to say how soon it can be completed. 

 Some additional field work should be done to render our knowledge of 

 northern birds more complete, but the larger part of the remaining work 

 is technical and clerical, and with sufficient help could be finished very 

 promptly. 



Study of the bird population of the College campus has been con- 

 tinued, and a statistical paper on this subject was read before the 

 American Ornithologists' Union at its annual meeting in Washington 

 in November, and probably will be published soon. The effort to in- 

 crease the number of valuable wild birds on the campus, begun several 

 years ago, has been measurably successful, and the partial failures in 

 some directions are not without plausible explanations. One of the 

 large martin boxes erected on the campus in 1899 is occupied this sum- 

 mer for the first time by a small colony of Purple Martins. It was my 

 wish and intention to put this box in the open at first; but owing to the 

 objections of the superintendent of grounds it was placed among tall 

 spruces whose tips surrounded and hid the box. Last year it was found 

 necessary to cut the tops of these spruces so as to allow the use of the 

 telescope in the observatory near by, and the change evidently made the 

 place acceptable to the martins who at once appropriated several com- 

 partments in spite of the remonstances of the sparrow tenants. Wrens 

 have continued to increase on the campus and more than a dozen pairs 

 are nesting here this summer, but as yet no bluebirds have been pre- 

 vailed upon to accept the quarters provided for them. As stated last year 

 this avoidance of the campus by the bluebird appears to be due mainly 

 to the presence in large numbers of English sparrows and red squirrels. 

 Probably it is not feasible to exterminate the former, however desirable 

 such a riddance might be, but it is entirely possible to kill off the red 

 squirrels, and it seems advisable to try the experiment. There is little 

 doubt in my mind that there would be an immediate increase in the 

 number of smaller birds nesting on the campus, and I feel reasonably 

 sure that the bluebird would be one of them. Of course it would be 

 very desirable to lessen the number of domestic cats as far as possible, 

 and the campus would be better if the blue jays were reduced to one- 

 half their present numbers, but this last bird is one of the few which 

 remains with us all winter and his beauty of plumage and interesting 



