<0 



hands of au old and experienced pilot collided with our flotilhi, resulting in 

 the crushinf4' and sinking of tlie steam launch in one instance, and in the 

 breakage of glassware aboard the laboratory boat at another time. With the 

 considerable and now increasing number of river craft of all sorts seeking 

 temporary or permanent ancliorage on the river front, we have been grad- 

 ually crowded to the least desirable location, where the shore is somewhat 

 springy, and where at low water access to our boat is possible only 

 by means of a dike of sand or a trestle-work of planking, owing to the soft 

 mud which is rapidly filling in the river front at this point. At such times our 

 location is neither inviting nor salubrious. The crowding of the boats and 

 the lax care usually given to such property in this locality greatly increase 

 our danger of loss by wreck or fire while we remain in our present location. 

 The experience of the past two years has only emphasized the necessity of 

 the location of the station at some suitable point— if at Havana, on Quiver 

 lake — where we can control property which will affoi-d us an abundance of 

 room, freedom from disturbance, facilities for carrying on the shore opera- 

 tions that pertain to our work, and the location of breeding ponds. 



The station was occupied by the station staff and in full operation in 1897 

 during the months of July, August, and September, and in 1898 from June 13 

 to October 1. In addition to this, monthly visits were made to it for plankton 

 ■work during the winter and spring of 1897, and beginning with the autumn 

 of 1897 visits were made for the same purpose until the full opening of the 

 station in June, 1898. As a result of these visits a very full series of winter 

 collections has been accumulated. Since September 1, 1898, Mr. Wallace 

 Craig, resident assistant at the station, has been in charge during my 

 absence. Previous to this time the property of the station was cared tor at 

 such times by Mr. Miles Newberry, who has been in our employ as general 

 collector, janitor and engineer for the past four years. His service has been 

 efficient and faithful in all the manifold and varied tasks which fall to his 

 hands. 



The work of the station has been in the main prosecuted along the lines 

 established in previous years, with a few expansions in some directions and 

 curtailments in others. The primary purpose of the station, that of investi- 

 gation, has been carried on along three principal lines: entomology, ichthy- 

 ology, and the quantitative investigation of the minute life of the water. 

 The entomological work has been in the hands of Mr. C. A. Hart, who was 

 at the station during considerable intervals in 1897 and 1898. 



Investigation of the fishes was taken up July, 1897, by Prof. Frank Smith, 

 and was continued bj^ him until September 1 of that year. In the summer of 

 1898 this work was taken up by Mr. Craig, and additional equipment has been 

 provided. The station was equipped with a hundred-j'ard river seine of an 

 inch-aud-a-half mesh, hung to fish eight feet; a forty-yard minnow seine of 

 one-^'ourth-inch mesh, hung to fish five feet; a thirty-foot minnow seine, hung 

 to fish four feet; a Baird seine of the same dimensions; and a trammel net 

 thirty- yards in length and five feet in depth. The additions to the equipment 

 consist of two set nets, one of three-fourths-inch mesh and eighteen-inch 

 hoops, the other of an inch-and-a-half mesh and four- foot hoops. Thii'teen 

 fish traps of quarter-inch galvanized wire netting were constructed especially 

 for the work in deep water and in places where a minnow seine could not be 

 used. They consist of a cylinder of netting ten inches in diameter, one end 

 of which is closed by a circle of wood and the other by two successive funnels 

 sloping inward, each with an opening three inches in diameter. For the 

 capture of the smallest fish the nets are covered with fine'wire cloth, and 

 their etticiency is also increased bj' the use of wings of the same material or 

 of minnow netting. 



The plankton operations of the last two years have been carried on with 

 increased regularity and greater attention to the correction of possible sources 

 of error. The number of stations subject to regular examination at the 

 beginning of the period covered by this report was seven; viz., the Illinois 

 river two and a half, miles above Havana, Quiver lake, Dogfish lake, 

 Thompson's lake. Flag lake, Phelps lake, and Spoon river, the latter 

 having been added to the list in August, 189G. The Illinois river 

 station was visited at intervals of one month until July, 189G, in which month 



