1891.) Biological Work of American Experiment Stations. 23 3 
basis. A knowledge of the flora and fauna of a state is not to be 
gained in a day nora year, nor even, under ordinary circumstances, 
in adecade. It requires the codperation of several specialists, with 
facilities for field and laboratory investigations, rooms for the 
storage of large numbers of duplicate specimens, a library of 
American and foreign natural history literature, extensive reference 
collections, means of producing illustrations, and. opportunities for 
the publication of results—in short, the methods and equipment 
of a permanent institution of investigation. 
So far as I am aware, Illinois is the only state, unless perhaps 
we except New York, that has supplied these conditions in a 
fairly respectable manner. For fifteen years it has maintained a 
State Laboratory of Natural History, one of the main objects of 
which has been to make a systematic natural history survey of the 
state. The work of this laboratory, as published in its series of 
bulletins, has obtained the most gratifying recognition from the 
scientific world; and the initial volume of the final reports gives 
promise of a series of great value and importance. The director 
is now engaged upon the second volume concerning birds, treat- 
ing of the food habits and economic relations of the various spe- 
cies, for the Illinois survey is not to be a mere catalogue of forms, 
but is to include the investigation and discussion of the relations 
of the organisms to each other and to agriculture. 
It is scarcely probable that, for the present, at least, other 
states will follow to any great extent the example thus set by 
Illinois. Even there, where the work of Kennicott, Walsh, LeBaron, ` 
Riley, Ridgway, Thomas, French, and Forbes has given natural 
history a prominence and popularity enjoyed by no other wen- 
ern state, it has often been difficult to get the meagre appropria- 
tions furnished for the work. But it seems to me that the organ- 
ization of an experiment station in each state furnishes an oppor- 
tunity for the conducting of such surveys upon a permanent and 
well-established basis. Nearly all of them include departments of 
botany and entomology, with specialists in charge, and in many 
the college biological departments are closely connected. = 
knowledge of the flora and fauna sof the states would furni 
exactly the foundation needed for the prosecution of the distinc- 
