ROSS: HOW TO COLLECT AND PRESERVE INSECTS 55 



are 2 inches or more long. No chilopod group in this state is 

 dangerous to human beings, but to the south occur centipedes 

 nearly a foot long that may inflict serious bites. 



THE STATE INSECT COLLECTION 



Illinois is one of the very few states that maintains a large 

 research insect collection. This collection is under the care and 

 guidance of the Section of Faunistic Surveys and Insect Identi- 



Fig. 64. — The Natural Resources Building, home of the Illinois Natural 

 History Survey, houses the state insect collection. This picture does not 

 show the new building wings, begun in December, 1947. 



fication of the Illinois Natural History Survey. It is housed in 

 the west part of the fireproof Natural Resources Building on the 

 University of Illinois campus at Urbana, fig. 64. Begun about 

 1880, the collection has grown steadily until now it is the most 

 extensive representative collection of the insect fauna of any 

 single state in the nation. The collection consists of over 2,000,000 

 specimens of insects housed in steel cabinets, fig. 65. The pinned 

 collection includes about 500,000 specimens in trays. The alco- 

 holic collection contains over 1,500,000 insects, including not only 

 a great amount of valuable adult material but also a very useful 

 collection of immature insects. The slide collection contains 

 nearly 70,000 specimens mounted as permanent microscopic 

 perparations. 



The most important use of the collection is in the identifica- 



