18 THE UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
vista is unmodified by timbered tracts. The rivers are but slen- 
der threads of silver, wending their way through wide strips 
of sand, margined by shallow banks. The lesser streams are 
little more than connected series of pools, which, if spring fed, 
may survive the drouths of summer. The meandering chan- 
nels of these latter are mere ditches bordered by narrow 
meadows lower than the surrounding level and covered with a 
more luxuriant growth of grasses. The region, however, is not 
without interest for the student of aquatic Hemiptera. The 
sandy stretches by the river channel abound with toad bugs 
and Saldids, while the pools along river and stream course are 
populated by the true aquatics. 
Eastern Kansas is more varied in its topography. There are 
stretches of upland plain, wooded slopes and rich alluvial] tiood 
plains. The rivers meander through wide valleys, dropping 
their never-ending burdens of silt in every stretch of slackened 
water, to add to the already obstructed channels. The waters 
of the region are typically muddy. The standing waters con- 
sist of oxbow lakes and artificial ponds. These depend upon 
the runoff of the land for maintenance. Now and then a clear — 
spring-fed pool may be found in some stream near its source, 
but such a pool is by no means common. There is plenty of 
water for a study of those forms of aquatic life that thrive in 
muddy, quiet waters. The spring freshets give rise to numer- 
ous temporary pools that linger until the dry days of summer 
lap them up, and these present an interesting study of tran- 
sient and indigenous populations that spring up, flourish for a 
time, and disappear with the passing of the waters. 
Central New York presents a marked contrast to the fore- 
going. It is a region of great, rolling, wooded hills, with up- 
land bogs and marshy meadows, spring-fed pools and sparkling 
brooks, deep ravines with water falls and rapids, and finally, 
narrow valleys with their scant flood plains and lake-confining 
basins. Here indeed is a wealth of water types. To one accus- 
tomed to collecting in the sluggish streams and artificial ponds 
in Kansas the environs of Ithaca, N. Y., afford a rare oppor- 
tunity. Here, within easy reach of the city, are to be found 
all gradations from well-areated, rushing, tumbling waters of 
the brook to the dark, acrid, sluggish streams of the upland 
bog; from spring-fed pools to lake conditions. 
Thus, of the three types studied, this last presents, by far, 
