72 



species occurring at the station, but of their relative abundance and local 

 distribution, their haunts, their habits, their regular migrations and irregular 

 movements, their breeding times and places, their rate of growth, their food, 

 their diseases and their enemies, and, in short, the whole economy of each 

 kind there represented and of the whole assemblage taken together as a com- 

 munity group. y 



Extensive studies of the aquatic entomology of the situation have also been 

 made, and an elaborate paper on ephemerids and dragon-flies, the joint con- 

 tribution of Messrs. Hart and Adams, of the laboratory staff, and of Professor 

 J. G. Needham, who worked with us during a part of the summer of 1897, is 

 now ready for the press. 



The so-called plankton work, the systematic study, that is, of the minuter 

 forms of plant and animal life suspended in the water, has gone steadily for- 

 ward under Dr. Kofoid's immediate care. Refinements and improvements 

 of method, new forms of apparatus, and a vast mass of material which has 

 been largely identified and studied by him are some of the more obvious re- 

 sults of our recent work in this field. No part of the work of the station 

 attracts more general attention among scientific men or is likely to lead to 

 more interesting and important results. 



By the Chemical Department of the University regular analyses of the 

 waters of certain selected localities have been made during the entire two 

 years, including one series of analysi-s of the gaseous contents of the water, 

 made at Havana, one for each of twenty- four consecutive hours. This chem- 

 ical work couibined with the coutinu(»us biological work of the station will, 

 when generalized, furnish a most substantial and authoritative body of knowl- 

 edge of the conditions of the waters of the middle Illinois previous to the 

 opening of the Chicago drainage canal which can scarcely fail to have a high 

 utility for comparison with the results of similar studies made after that event. 



Our main equipment — the cabin boat, the launch, and the smaller boats — 

 has served our purpose perfectly, and the station property is in good order 

 and condition in all respects. 



The summer school of 1898, for whose expenses you voted a guarantee 

 fund of $300, proved a di appointment only in the number in attendance, a 

 deficiency easily accounted for in part by the lateness of the period at which 

 we were able to announce our session, and in part by the fact that we could 

 not ofi'er last year certain local and personal inducements which may easily 

 be provided for another S('ssit)n. Authority to advertise the school was not 

 given until the March meeting of the board this jear, too short an interval 

 thus remaining before our opening in June. For want of anj- special build- 

 ing of our own we were ob tgjed to resort to the village school building at 

 Havana, generously placed at our disposal without compensation by the 

 •school trustees, and students of the school were thus compelled to live in the 

 town. Vacation life in a village boarding house with work in a school room 

 offers too little relief from the ordinary experience of the student or teacher 

 to be especially attractive in itself. If the school is to be maintained— and I 

 sincerely hope' that it may bt — we should have a plot of land on the banks of 

 •Quiver lake, two miles and a half above Havana, should have erected there a 

 building suitable for summer use as a students' laboratory, should provide 

 facilities for life in camp to those who prefer them, and should also make it 

 possible tor students to live either at that place or in town. 



Fifteen students were in attendance throughout our term of four weeks. 

 Tue only instructors regularly engaged were Assistant Professor Frank 

 Suiith, of the Department of Zoology, and Instructor C. F. Hottes, of the 

 Depaitmeiit of Botany. The work was carefully planned and very thoroughly 

 and etficiently done, and was received very cordially by all in attendance. 



Publicatiou of papers has been made by the State Laboratory to the full 

 limit of our appropriation for this purpose, nine articles of our Laboratory 

 Bulletin, comprising four hundred and thirty-eight pages of text and sixty 

 plates, liaving been printed and distributed during the last two years. They 

 t;et forth mainly the general results of our Biological Station work combined 

 with the result.s of studies by advanced students and the station staff upon 



