396 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



then our efforts met with interference which made their successful prose- 

 cution impossible. Before they were abandoned, however, the stomachs 

 of some 27 brook trout were obtained, and their contents (consisting 

 almost wholly of insects), cleaned and preserved, are now part of the 

 state museum collection. The records of the numerous insects collected 

 during these few days about the shores of Bone pond will be found under 

 their respective species in part 3 of this report, and a brief account 

 of the vegetation, above in the introduction. A random report on the 

 fish food there collected may yet be made from the material I prepared, 

 but it will of necessity lack the features which I counted most essential, 

 unless farther study be made at the pond itself. 



Bullfrogs were common in Little Clear creek, and I collected the 

 stomach contents of 25 of them. Lack of time is the only reason why 

 they have not been studied, and are not reported on at the present time. 



Life histories of insects. One of the first decisions made with 

 respect to station work was that no greater service could be done for 

 aquatic entomology, pure or applied, than adding as opportunity offered 

 to present knowledge of insect life histories. So long as the species 

 can not be recognized in their immature stages, little progress is possible 

 in food studies, or in quantitative studies of any sort. To this absolutely 

 necessary preliminary work, therefore, much the greater part of our time 

 was given. 



We were able to work out more or less completely the hfe histories of 

 about a hundred species of aquatic insects, immature stages of most of 

 which are described in part 3 of this report. Those who have done life 

 history work will not need to be told that this work occupied rather fully 

 the available time of our short session. 



In order to make part 3 serviceable to teachers and students, I have 

 filled it with keys and tables for determining the orders, families, genera , 

 and species of immature stages of aquatic insects, and have illustrated 

 these with special figures explaining the terms used. The several 

 orders will be found to have received very unequal treatment, because 

 we wished to add chiefly to the knowledge of the things least known. 

 For this reason the larvae of Diptera and Coleoptera received much less 

 than a fair share of attention ; for they are already much better known 

 than are the larvae of the other orders treated. 



More dragon flies than anything else were reared. There are two 

 reasons for this : Saranac Inn is a splendid locality for dragon flies, and 

 I have been rearing dragon flies for a number of years and have learned 

 how to do it. With slight additions from my former breedings, I have 



