(232 The American Naturalist. [Mareh, 
its bark ; and of numerous other agencies to which it sustains vital 
relations. 
In view of this intimate relation between the organisms with 
which we have to deal, it seems to me that one of the first needs 
of our work is the organization of biological surveys of our re- 
spective states ; and to this point I invite your special attention. 
In that masterly essay published just ten years ago this month, 
entitled “On Some Interactions of Organisms,” Dr. S. A. Forbes 
stated that “ the principal general problem of economical biology 
is that of the discovery of the laws of oscillation in plants and 
animals, and of the methods of nature for its prevention and con- 
trol.” This is as true to-day as it was then, and so also is this 
paragraph that immediately follows it: 
“For all this, evidently, the first, indispensable requisite is a 
thorough knowledge of the natural order—an intelligently con- 
ducted natural history survey. Without the general kriowledge 
which such a survey would give us all our measures must be 
empirical, temporary, uncertain, and often dangerous. ” 
At various times in the history of many of the United States 
provision has been made for more or less complete natural history 
surveys. Asa rule they have been combined with geological sur- 
veys, but this has been by no means universal. In Illinois the 
work has very appropriately been given to the State Labora- 
tory of Natural History, the first of the series of final reports— 
an elaborate monograph of Illinois birds by Robert Ridgway— 
having lately been issued. In Kansas such a survey has been 
undertaken by the scientific staff of Washburn College, and in 
other western states scientific associations are at work upon it. 
It must be confessed that the results of these surveys on the 
whole are incomplete and unsatisfactory. In no state can there 
be found a series of volumes containing an adequate account ot 
its flora and fauna. The reason is not far m seek. The provision 
made fi for their fficient ; to one man 
has been given Dee. work of ten, and ne has often also haca compelled 
to compass in a single season investigations requiring a decade for 
their proper completion. Asa rulethe work has also been of a 
transient nature, and very rarely has it rested on a fairly permanent 
