69 



standpoint. Mr. Thomas was able to employ several excellent assist- 

 ants, and the six reports as a whole are very creditable to the State. 

 The last of the six reports shows rather plainly the falling- oft" in Mr. 

 Thomas's interest in the subject of entomology. Its publication was 

 coincident with the close of the work of the U. S. Entomological Com- 

 mission, and it consists entirely of reports by Mr. D. W. Coquillett and 

 Prof. G. H. French. After its publication Mr. Thomas transferred his 

 labors to the field of ethnology, in which he had long been interested, 

 and he is at the present time one of the able workers in the U. S. 

 Bureau of Ethnology. 



Upon Mr. Thomas's withdrawal from ofl&ce. Prof. S. A. Forbes, direc- 

 tor of the State Laboratory of Natural History at Normal, III., was 

 appointed State entomologist, his commission dating July 3, 1882. 

 Prof. Forbes's attention had for some time been more or less engaged 

 by questions relating to economic entomology. He has held office con- 

 tinuously since that time, and has published six reports, the first one 

 covering the remainder of the year 1882, the second the year 1883, the 

 third the year 1884, the fourth the years 1885 and 1886, the fifth the 

 years 1887 and 1888, and the sixth the years 1889 and 1890. Prof. 

 Forbes's reports are among the best which have been published. They 

 are characterized by extreme care and by an originality of treatment 

 which has seldom been equaled. The practical end is the one which 

 he has kept mainly in view. His experiments with the arsenites 

 against the codling moth and the plum curculio were the first careful, 

 scientific experiments in this direction which were made, and his inves- 

 tigations of the bacterial diseases of insects have placed him in the 

 front rank of investigators in this line. His monographic treatment of 

 the insects aftecting the strawberry plant is a model of its kind, and the 

 same may be said of his work upon the corn bill-bugs and of his studies 

 of the chinch bug. In fact, whatever insect or group of insects has 

 been the subject of his investigations, he has attacked the problem in 

 a thoroughly original and eminently scientific and practical manner. 

 Prof. Forbes has been able to command the services of a very able corps 

 of assistants, including Messrs. C. M. Weed, H. Garman, F. M. Webster, 

 John Marten, and C. A. Hart. 



Missouri. — In the session of 1807-'G8 the legislature of Missouri 

 passed an act establishing the office of State entomologist, and directed 

 that the reports of this officer should be made to the State board of agri- 

 culture. The first and only appointee to this position was Prof. C V. 

 Kiley, who had at that time become prominent as an entomologist through 

 his writings in the Prairie Farmer, of Chicago, with which paper he had 

 been for some time connected, and through his editorship, in associa- 

 tion with Mr. B. D. Walsh, of the American Entomologist, of which one 

 volume had then been published. He entered upon his duties April 1, 

 1808, and published his first annual report in December of that year. 

 From that date there followed annually eight additional reports, the 

 ninth being submitted March 14, 1877, and covering the year 1876. 



