12 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
Violas pedatifida and pedata bicolor, Gaura biennis, Polytaenia 
nuttallii, Gentiana puberula, Asclepias sullivantii, A. rubra, A. 
verticillata, Phlox maculata, P. glaberrima, Liatris, Grindelia 
squarrosa, Echinacea purpurea and others might be saved. 
The chief engineer of the railroad replied that the sections 
set apart would be untidy in appearance, occasion hazard from 
fire and endanger adjoining property, and if allowed to ma- 
ture would go to seed and thus disseminate objectionable 
plants. He asked if the Academy would be willing to guaran- 
tee the railroad company against trouble by fire and would 
run plowed furrows around the areas planted at certain reg- 
ular intervals. As the Academy would not undertake to carry 
out the propositions presented the matter was dropped. 
H. S. PEPOON, Chairman. 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON AN ECOLOGICAL 
SURVEY OF THE STATE 
Your Committee on an Ecological Survey has to report that 
its work has been, during the past year, of substantially the 
same character as heretofore, the various members of the 
committee being severally engaged on their separate problems, 
co-operating by conference rather than by means of plans sys- 
tematically co-ordinated in advance. Each of us is, in fact, 
so limited by location, official and educational engagements, 
and the like, that any more compact organization of our 
studies seems for the present impracticable. The ecologists of 
the Chicago area are, however, making steady and substantial 
progress towards a complete ecological survey of their terri- 
tory. Elsewhere in the state our work has been virtually limit- 
ed to the Operations of the State Laboratory of Natural History 
together with the State Entomologist's office, the work of 
Doctor Adams's students at the University of Illinois, and the 
studies of Transeau and Hankinson at the Eastern Illinois 
State Normal School. 
The most important items of progress during the year are 
three publications by members of the committee: Shelford's 
volume on animal communities in temperate America as illus- 
trated in the Chicago region; Adams's guide to the study of 
animal ecology; and Forbes and Richardson's studies on the 
biology of the upper Illinois River, published as a bulletin of 
the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. The vol- 
