42 



The zoological display was made in accordance with detailed plans pre- 

 pared by the director of the State Laboratory, the execution of which 

 was confided to Mr. Charles F. Adams* for the birds, and to Prof. H. E. 



Summers for the insects. 



The material for the ornithological exhibit was chiefly obtained by 

 special collections made for this purpose during the winter of 1891 and 

 the spring and summer of 1892 by ])arties sent out from the Laborator.v, 

 and mounted by Mr. Adams himself. As it was (luite impossible to 

 make a complete collection of the birds of the State within so short a 

 time, the deficiencies remaining were supplied by selections made from 

 the museums of the University of Illinois at Champaign, and of the 

 State Board of Agriculture at S^pringfleld, and by purchase of skins from 

 taxidermists. 



The entomological exhibit was lilcewise provided in part from special col- 

 lections made by Laboratory employes and by assistants especially en- 

 gaged for the purpose, and in still greater part from the cabinets of the 

 State Laboratory and of the University of Illinois. 



The beautiful colored drawings, one hundred and one in number, dis- 

 tributed through the entomological exhibit to illustrate species too small 

 to be well seen by the naked eye, were made at the State Laboratory 

 for the purpose by Miss Lydia M. Hart, the special artist of the estab- 

 lishment. 



The Ichthyological collections were all made during the season of 1893 

 by assistants sent from the Laboratory, Mr. J. E. Ilallinen, a student of 

 the University, doing the greater part of the field and Laboratory work. 



It may be proper to place on record here some statement of the man- 

 ner in which this exhibit was received by those best qualified to appre- 

 ciate it. In the Aukf for October, 1893, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, at Central Park, Xew York, 

 writes in an article on "Ornithology at"^the \Yorkrs Fair," that '-Illinois 

 was easily the leader in the department of local collections representing 

 the bird life of a state or province. Its collection,"' he says, "•placed in 

 tlie State building, is well mounted, and the method of arrangement is 

 one which might well be followed in the display of similar collections." 

 Elsewhere he says that it is by far the best state collection that he has 

 ever seen. Mr. Robert Eidgway, Curator of Ornithology to the United 

 States National Museum, writes of it also as "incomparably superior to 

 any other state exhibit at the Fair, and a very close competitor with 

 the Government exhibit." He says, "I do not see how, making due al- 

 lowance for limited time and means, it could have been improved." 



Equally flattering comments were made upon the entomological fea- 

 tures of the exhibit by economic entomologists, both American and for- 

 eign, the collection of apple insects especially, and that exhibiting the 

 food of a single robin for one year, attracting wide attention. 



The entire mass of this material, excepting only a few birds borrowed 

 from the museum of the university and seventy-one specimens from 

 that of the State Department of -Agriculture, was, at the close of the 

 Exposition, transferred l)y the State World's Fair Commissioners to the 

 Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, and removed to Champaign. 



The ornithological collection thus acquired I have placed in the 

 museum of the university so far as the cases there will contain them, 

 and the remaining material is now in the collection rooms of tlie State 

 Laboratory, in the basement of Natural History Hall. 



*The sudden and wlioUj' unexpoctpd death of Mr. Adams nt Chicaco while engai:ed in the In- 

 stallation of this exhibit, to whosopreparation ho had devoted nearly two ,ve!\rs of intense and 

 nnremittinK lalior, bronftht to a mournful and untimely eiul the promising: career of !\n excellent 

 naturaltHt and a most lovable man. Admirably equipped by his university education, by his very 

 unusual artistic skill as a preparator of zonUifrical material, and by his experiences of scientific 

 travel in various parts ot the world, he seemed merely at the begiuuiUK of a life of eminent usefnl- 

 uess to science and to the State. 



tA' quarterly journal, the organ of the .\merieaii Ornithologists" Union. 



