December, 1958 



Ross: Faunistic Surveys 



137 



formation on distribution and habits. 

 After Mohr left the Natural History Sur- 

 vey in 1947, the work on mammals was 

 taken up by D. F. Hoffmeister of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, and the resultinji field- 

 book appeared shortly after Mohr had 

 rejoined the Survev staff (Hoffmeister (S: 

 Mohr 1957). 



Invertebrates Other Than Insects 



Most of the invertebrate studies made 

 durinfi; the early history of the Survey 

 concerned chiefly aquatic organisms which 

 were important in limnological inves- 

 tigations. The first paper by Forbes 

 (1876) in the Bulletin was a list of the 

 Illinois Crustacea; this was followed by 

 a paper on Crustacea bv L. M. Under- 

 wood (1886). A. Hempel (1896, 1899) 

 described a few rotifers and protozoans 

 from the Illinois River, and C. A. Kofoid 

 (1898, 1899) described a few plankton 

 organisms of Illinois. R. \W . Sharpe 

 (1897), F. W. Schacht (1897, 1898). 

 and Ernest Forbes (1897) made addi- 

 tional contributions to a knowledge of the 

 Crustacea. C. M. Weed (1890) did con- 

 siderable work on the phalangids of Illi- 

 nois and published a partial catalog of 

 the group. 



Several other invertebrate studies pub- 

 lished in the Bulletin were almost en- 

 tirely the work of nonstalt members, some 

 of whom worked activelv in co-operation 

 with the Survey. J. P.' Moore (1901) 

 treated the Illinois leeches; Frank Smith 

 (1895-1928) published many papers on 

 earthworms; H. J. Van Cleave (1919) 

 studied Illinois River Acanthocephala ; 

 Henry E. Ewing (1909) studied the 

 orobatid mites; and F. C. Baker (1906) 

 published a catalog of the Illinois Mol- 

 lusca. 



Ecological work on the rivers amassed 

 collections of the various plankton groups, 

 but only those portions noted above were 

 ever analyzed taxonomically. Much of 

 the material was discarded after being 

 recorded, and much was lost by desicca- 

 tion. Except for the collections of Mol- 

 lusca, by 1947 only a small amount of 

 the early invertebrate collections re- 

 mained. 



About 1930 a survey of the land snails 

 of Illinois was organized under the lead- 

 ership of F. C. Baker. The field work 



was done primarily b\' T. D. Foster. 

 Foster used a motorcycle on collecting 

 trips and shared with S. C. Chandler the 

 distinction of being one of the few mem- 

 bers of the Survey's motorcycle brigade. 

 For 2 years he conducted a whirlwind 

 search over the entire state for land snails 

 and brought together a remarkable num- 

 ber of records. The material was iden- 

 tified by Baker, who prepared a report 

 that appeared as a fieldbook of the Illinois 

 land snails (Baker 1939). The book was 

 beautifully illustrated by C. O. Mohr. 



Berlese collecting, instituted about 1933 

 primarily for exploring the insects in duf¥, 

 netted not only insects but large numbers 

 of terrestrial invertebrates, mainlv arach- 

 noids. About 1940 C. C. Hoff of the 

 University of New Mexico became inter- 

 ested in co-operating in a study of pseudo- 

 scorpions of Illinois. He found that many 

 species collected in these Berlese samples 

 were new and represented a Midwestern 

 faunal element which had remained un- 

 seen because other pseudoscorpion spe- 

 cialists lived in either the East or the 

 West. Hoff's report on the Illinois fauna 

 was published bv the Natural Historv 

 Survey (Hoff 1949). 



Insects 



Considering not only the economic im- 

 portance of insects but also the exceed- 

 ingly large number of species expected in 

 the state (approximately 20,000), it is 

 not surprising that the Natural History 

 Survey's most extensive faunistic contri- 

 butions have been made in this group. 

 Many of the studies have resulted in de- 

 scriptions of new species, life history 

 notes, and distribution records contained 

 in short papers; many others have resulted 

 in comprehensive accounts of various 

 groups found in Illino's. 



Orthoptera. — Thomas was early a 

 keen student of the Orthoptera and in the 

 first of the Transactions of the Natural 

 History Society published a list of this or- 

 der for Illinois (Thomas 1859/*). His in- 

 terest continued and he published a second, 

 enlarged list in the first volume of the 

 Bulletin (Thomas 1876). In the early 

 1900's, Hart and A. G. Vestal made 

 large and extremely interesting collections 

 of this order in the Illinois sand areas, in 

 which an appreciable number of western 



