53 



differences due to an advance of the season merely, and to 

 distinguish clearly those due to latitude, and to climate cor- 

 responding. 



The forestry survey work has been resumed under an ar- 

 rangement with the United States Forest Service, which in- 

 sures its completion within the next two years. The State 

 Laboratory of Natural History and the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture share equally in the expenses of operation. Two 

 assistants of the Survey and one from the Entomologist's of- 

 fice are now in the field in southern Illinois. 



Collections of Lachnosternas were made last spring by 

 entomological assistants in all parts of the state from various 

 situations, and on a selected list of food plants. Some sixty 

 thousand specimens have this year been determined as to 

 species, and a tabulation of their ecological data is now in 

 progress. 



A report on the mammals of Champaign county, prepared 

 by F. E. Wood, is based on a large amount of exact 

 and careful field observation extending over three years. 

 Ecological data of every description are included in this re- 

 port. 



It was hoped that we might be able to begin, as a regular 

 part of the program of the biological survey, a systematic 

 analysis of the state of Illinois with reference to habitats as 

 a foundation for an ecological map, or series of maps, of the 

 state, and the legislature was asked for a sufficient increase 

 of State Laboratory appropriations to enable us to begin this 

 work. No such increase was made, however, and the operations 

 of the Laboratory are consequently limited, for the present 

 two-year period, practically to lines already established. 



Mr. Baker has made a survey of the Skokie Marsh region 

 near Chicago, an area three miles long and about a mile wide. 

 The results have been embodied in a paper in which the mol- 

 lusks and associated plants and animals are listed and the 

 habitats described. This paper, illustrated by a number of 

 photographs of the several stations and several maps, is in 

 course of publication in the Bulletin of the Illinois State 



