PREFACE. 



THE act of the legislature of Alabama, approved April 

 18, 1873, "To revive and complete the geological and 

 agricultural survey of Alabama," has from the first been 

 construed to include, as related to agriculture and there- 

 fore legitimately a part of the survey work, the investi- 

 gation of the fauna and flora of the State. In the pre- 

 face of my first report, 1874, 1 have outlined the scope of a 

 complete report of this survey to include, 



I. Physical Geography. 



II. Geology and Paleontology. 



III. Economic Geology. 



IV. Agricultural Relations, and 

 V. Botany and Zoology, 



and the reports of the Survey from year to year have 

 covered more or less in detail all of these subjects. 



Collections of the native plants of this State, begun in 

 1873 and continued since, have resulted in the accumula- 

 tion of a fairly complete herbarium of the plants growing 

 without cultivation in Alabama, and the publication of the 

 classical work of Dr. Charles Mohr "The Plant Life of 

 Alabama." Additional notes on the flora of the State have 

 been published in most of the Survey reports up to the 

 present time. 



Naturally the insects injurious to vegetation and the 

 birds and other animals which prey upon them, or which 

 are themselves directly destructive of vegetation, must 

 be considered in any reasonably complete account of the 

 agricultural features of the State. 



In my report for 1875 was published a preliminary 

 paper on the cotton worm by Prof. A. R. Grote, and in 

 the 1876 report, A Preliminary List of the Fresh Water 

 Shells of the State, by Mr. James Lewis. 



We have now in manuscript ready for publication, a 

 similar list of the Reptiles and Batrachiaus of Alabama 

 by H. P. Loding of Mobile, and the present report con- 



