assistant $100 for the present year only. The salaries of the 

 office entomologist, field entomologist, and amanuensis (who 

 acts also as librarian) have been, respectively, 8600, S900, and 



Owning to changes of assistants, indirectly due to the or- 

 ganization of a large number of new state agricultural experi- 

 ment stations, the general zoological work of the State Natural 

 History Survey has materially fallen off, but relatively greater 

 attention has been given to economic investigation. The 

 zoological work has been limited to considerable additions to 

 the ornithological collections, made for a further study of the 

 food of birds; and desultory studies on the lower aquatic ani- 

 mals of the state, especially insect larvae. Vermes, and Protozoa. 

 The progress of our knowledge of the aquatic zoology of Illi- 

 nois has been indirectly advanced by vacation work done out- 

 side our state limits, — during the summer of 1889 in northern 

 Michigan and Lake Superior, and during that of 1890 in the 

 lakes and streams of the northern Rocky Mountains. Reports 

 on these collections have been prepared, or are in course of 

 preparation, for publication by the U. S. Fish Commissioner, 

 and as this material is studied, our similar and parallel collec- 

 tions from this state are studied with it, to the great advantage 

 of the local work. 



Our entomological investigations have been, as heretofore, 

 almost wholly economic in their motive; nevertheless, no oppor- 

 tunity has been lost to improve our acquaintance with the in- 

 sects of Illinois, whether economically interesting or not. The 

 building of an insectary and separate office (the former devoted 

 to experimental work upon the life histories of insects, their 

 injuries to vegetation, and methods of practically controlling 

 them) has given us an opportunity not before enjoyed for con- 

 tinuous observation and accurate experijuent on some of the 

 most difficult species. The principal subjects which we have 

 studied are the life histories of cutworms, the contagious dis- 

 eases of the chinch bug, the life history of the corn root louse 

 and of the species of ant uniformly associated with it, the 

 feeding habits of the plum and peach curculio with insecticide 

 experiments for its destruction on the peach, the stages and 

 life history of a new plum borer, the injuries to fruit by the 



