9 
Illinois River and adjacent waters, published in the Bulletin of 
the State Laboratory of Natural History in 1895. It may be 
said in general that the substations chosen represent the 
springy bank and sandy margin of Quiver Lake and of the river 
itself in both swift and sluggish water, the opposite mud bank 
of river and lake, shallow mud hats overgrown with water 
weeds, the bed of river and lake in the deepest water occurring, 
and three forms of bottom-land lakes, together with a fourth 
occasionally visited. Thompson’s Lake gives us a permanent 
body of water of some little depth, always opening into the river, 
even at its lowest stage, but contrasting with Quiver Lake in the 
fact that this opening is long and tortuous, while in the latter 
it is half as broad as the lake itself. Matanzas Lake, on the 
eastern side of the river, but below the town, is substantially 
intermediate in character between these two. Like Quiver Lake, 
it has a high, wooded, sandy eastern shore and low forest-cov¬ 
ered mud banks on the west, with an inlet at the head, which is, 
however, smaller than Quiver Creek. The flow of spring water 
from the sand is much more abundant. Like Thompson’s 
Lake, its outlet is narrow, but it is very short. This lake com¬ 
monly has more vegetation than Thompson’s and less than 
Quiver Lake. In Flag Lake we have little more than a fairly 
permanent swamp, subject, indeed, in extraordinary years to be 
dried out completely, but overflowed again from the river at 
every slight rise. Phelps Lake, on the other hand, serves as an 
example of the highly variable conditions prevailing in a pool 
filled up at every general overflow, but isolated on the retreat of 
the waters, and drying out entirely in the very driest years. 
ESSENTIAL OBJECTS. 
It is the general object of our Biological Station to study 
the forms of life, both animal and vegetable, in all of their, 
stages, of a great river system, as represented in carefully 
selected typical localities. This study must include their dis¬ 
tinguishing characters ; their classification and variations ; their 
local and general distribution and abundance; their behavior, 
characteristics, and life histories ; their mutual relationships and 
interactions as living associates; and the interactions likewise 
between them and the inanimate forms of matter and of energy 
in the midst of which they live. We are, in short, to do what 
