25 



a completed inamiscript, aceonipanied by thirty folded sheets setting foi*th in 

 tabular form the distribution of tlie various species at each substation and also 

 throughout the Station field for the different months of the year. This report 

 was finished last September and will be printed without delay. 



Dr. Kofoid has lately filed a report, which is about to go to press, on methods 

 and apparatus in use in plankton work at the Station, accompanied by seven 

 illustrative plates. He has in hand six other papers, which will doubtless l)e 

 ready for publication before the end of the current fiscal year. These will 

 include reports on the local distribi;tion of the plankton in the Illinois River 

 and its adjacent waters, on the sources of error in the plankton method, on the 

 plankton of the river during the years 1894, 1895, and 1896, on the plankton 

 of Phelps Lake, — a body of water of the ephemeral type, — an article on 

 Trocliosphoera, and one on Cotylaspis insiyne — a remarkable parasite of the 

 river clams. 



Professor Smith has under way a general report on our oligochfete collec- 

 tions, to consist of about fifty pages of text with several plates. This report 

 will contain a synoptic key and illustrated descriptions of species for use in 

 identifying forms occurring in the State. 



Mr. Hart, Station Entomologist, and Mr. J. G. Needham are working con- 

 jointly iipon a report on the dragon-flies of the Station waters and their vicin- 

 ity and a list of the mollusks with biographical and oecologieal notes is in 

 course of preparation by Mr. Hart. 



Two senior students of the zoological department of the University, Mr. E. B. 

 Forbes and Mr. F. W. Schaeht, are engaged in thesis investigations, under 

 the personal supervision of the Director of the Station, which will result in 

 the preparation and publication of papers on entomostracan groups, one the 

 Cyclopidae, the other the Centropagidse, of North America, including of course 

 the Station collections. 



I have myself undertaken to prepare, and have nearly finished, a compre- 

 hensive article on the Crustacea of the Biological Station field, with analytical 

 synopses of all the gi'oups and illustrative figures for the use of the student of 

 our aquatic fauna. 



A paper on the planarian worms found at Havana is now reported as prac- 

 tically ready for the press in the hands of Dr. W. M. Woodworth, of Hai-%-ard 

 University. Articles in course of preparation by visiting investigators are 

 "The Mycetozoa collected near Havana, Illinois, during the siunmerof 1896." 

 by H. C. Beardslee, of University School, Cleveland, Ohio, and "Statistical 

 Record of the Trematoda Parasitic in the Unionidiie," by Professor H. M. 

 Kelly, of Cornell College, Iowa. 



The excellent work done by the Station Artist, Miss Lydia ^1. Hart, in illus- 

 tration of nearly all the papers of the foregoing list, is deserving of particular 

 mention. One hundred and three drawings have been made by her of new or 



otherwise interesting animal forms, besides several drawings of pieces of ap- 

 paratus and other featinvs of the equipment. 



