Faunistic Surveys 



HERBERT H. ROSS 



T N their beginnings and early develop- 

 -*■ ment, investigations of the fauna of 

 the Midwest differed in several respects 

 from similar endeavors in other parts of 

 the world. The Midwest was explored 

 and collected intensively considerably 

 later than the eastern American seaboard, 

 so that the advances in the knowledge of 

 the North American fauna made in the 

 eastern United States were available as 

 an aid to moderately rapid advances when 

 faunal studies were begun in the Mid- 

 west. In the eastern United States and 

 also in Europe, systematic investigations 

 were begun in response to man's in- 

 herent curiosity concerning the kinds of 

 life in his surroundings and were de- 

 veloped to a considerable state of ad- 

 vancement chiefly under this stimulus. 

 In the Midwest, the first serious syste- 

 matic efforts were undoubtedly begun in 

 answer to pure curiosity, but almost im- 

 mediately after their inception, especially 

 in Illinois, these studies were picked up 

 and swept along by the tremendous de- 

 mand for identification caused by the 

 agricultural and scientific developments 

 of the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century. 



EARLY BACKGROUND 



The sudden formation of natural his- 

 torv societies in the Midwest during the 

 1850's — at Louisville in 1851, Grand 

 Rapids in 1854, Milwaukee in 1855, and 

 Chicago in 1856 — gives an impression in 

 retrospect that before that decade there 

 were no naturalists in the area. This was 

 far from the case, for a few enthusiastic 

 naturalists were active in various lo- 

 calities through the Midwestern region 

 even before these dates. 



Among the Midwestern naturalists 

 were the famous zoologists Thomas Say, 

 C. A. Le Sueur, and G. Troost, living 

 and working on the banks of the Wabash 

 River at New Harmony, Indiana, in the 

 1820's and 1830's, and' C. S. Rafinesque 

 at Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1810's 



and 1820's. Many other persons collected 

 material for these men or sent speci- 

 mens for identification to taxonomists in 

 the eastern United States or Europe. 



The early faunistic workers of the 

 1840's and the 1850's in Illinois included 

 such men as Cyrus Thomas, John A. and 

 Robert Kennicott, J. B. Turner, and 

 Benjamin D. Walsh, all of them self- 

 taught naturalists. These and other en- 

 thusiasts made accurate observations on 

 the fauna, built up collections of various 

 animal groups, and kept in touch with 

 their confreres in the eastern states. The 

 Illinois entomologists published articles, 

 some of them in the Prairie Farmer, and 

 absorbed the ideas of such great early 

 entomologists as T. W. Harris of Mas- 

 sachusetts and Asa Fitch of New York. 



In Illinois the State Agricultural So- 

 ciety, formed in 1853, was an important 

 agent in bringing together Illinois zo- 

 ologists, entomologists, and botanists into 

 an organized natural history society. The 

 progressive officers of the Agricultural 

 Society were conscious from the first of 

 the destructive nature of insects and were 

 sufficiently versed in biological concepts to 

 realize that applied biology requires a full 

 knowledge of all forms of natural life. 

 To encourage acquisition of this knowl- 

 edge, the Agricultural Society offered 

 prizes at its state fairs for collections in 

 natural history fields. In 1854 Wm. J. 

 Shaw of Tazewell County won first prize 

 for the "Best suite of the animal king- 

 dom, including insects and animals in- 

 jurious to the farmer" (J. A. Kennicott 

 1855:122). In 1855 Robert Kennicott 

 won two prizes, one for the "Greatest 

 and best collection of named insects," the 

 other for a zoological collection; in 1856 

 he won seven firsts — for a collection in 

 each of the following classes: shells, named 

 insects, zoology, botany, stuffed birds, rep- 

 tiles, and fishes (J. A. Kennicott 1857:90, 

 142). 



In the State Agricultural Society's first 

 Transactions, three lists of animals for 

 Illinois were published, one on southern 



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