55 



supply of material to the state educational institutions or to 

 the State Museum. 



The staff of the survey now consists of the director, an 

 entomologist, two zoological assistants, an artist, and a sec- 

 retary. Special assistants are employed from time to time 

 for special purposes. Two such assistants were engaged, for 

 example, for a year during 1906 and 1907 in making field ob- 

 servations and collecting data for a statistical survey of the 

 bird life of the state, and a computer has been engaged for 

 some months in organizing and tabulating these data for 

 discussion. Furthermore, the relations of the Laboratory to the 

 State Entomologist's office are so intimate and long-continued, 

 as will presentl}^ be explained, that the service of several as- 

 sistants in both offices is rendered first in one direction and 

 then in the other as the exigencies of the work require. In- 

 deed, the State Entomologist's work is essentially a specialized 

 part of the natural history survey, directed primarily to econom- 

 ic ends, but so managed as to make the greatest possible con- 

 tribution also to the scientific and educational purposes of the 

 general survey. 



The State Laboratory is quartered in the Natural History 

 Building of the University of Illinois, in which it occupies at 

 present five rooms. It has further assigned to its use, to be- 

 come available as soon as the addition to the Natural History 

 Building — now nearly finished — is ready for occupancy, two 

 more large rooms, toi which a third is to be added in the near 

 future. 



Apart from its collections, which have naturally become very 

 large — about a quarter of a million of specimens of Illinois 

 fish, for example — the most useful possession of the Laboratory 

 is its library, which is the product of many years of careful 

 selection and purchase of the literature of the world necessary 

 to an investigation of the zoology and entomology of Illinois. 

 It contains also many botanical and general biological works, 

 and includes complete series of all the bibliographies of zoology. 

 It now contains nearly 7000 books and something over 17,000 



