22 THE CAUD GC BOWN. BG AE er 

after more than fifty years of productive work in extending our knowl- 
edge of biology in the State. 
After undertaking work in the University of Illinois, in addition to 
his other activities, the opportunities for extensive work along ornitho- 
logical lines were necessarily decreased, but still some noteworthy 
things have been accomplished. An examination of the general intro- 
duction and of the preface to the well-known work of Robert Ridgway 
on the Birds of Illinois reveals the fact that it was undertaken at the 
request of Doctor Forbes and that it was a publication of the State 
Laboratory of Natural History. 
Among the educational exhibits at the World’s Columbian Exposition 
in Chicago, in 1893, were some by the State Laboratory of Natural 
History and by the University of Illinois. One of these was an exhibit 
of birds that attracted much attention and favorable comment and 
which was planned by Doctor Forbes, who secured the services of an 
especially competent taxidermist, Charles F. Adams, for its preparation 
and installation. It included a collection of 53 common game birds of 
Illinois mounted as dead game; a series of four “biological groups 
mounted in various naturalistic attitudes, with natural accessories in- 
dicating haunts, habits and the like,” and “‘a general collection of all of 
the birds of the State grouped according to their distribution within the 
State at different seasons of the year.”’ This last collection included about 
700 specimens, most of which were well mounted and the habitat groups 
included two especially attractive ones of Wild Turkeys and Prairie 
Chickens. These collections ultimately were deposited in the Natural 
History Museum of the University where they are objects of much 
interest to visitors and especially useful as part of the equipment 
utilized in the courses in ornithology. In an article by Frank M. . 
Chapman in The Auk (Vol. X) entitled “Ornithology at the World’s 
Fair,” in his discussion of the various state exhibits we find the following 
statements: “‘In this department Illinois is easily leader. Its collection, 
placed in the State Building, is well mounted and the method of ar- 
rangement is one which might well be followed in the display of similar 
collections.” 
Beginning with the establishment of the Biological Station on the 
Illinois River in 1894, the major part of the activities of the State 
Laboratory of Natural History, not utilized in the solving of entomo- 
logical problems related to agriculture and horticulture, have been 
devoted to an extensive and thorough study of the highly important 
and extremely complex series of organisms in a river system. A splendid 
volume of the fishes of the State by Forbes and Richardson and several 
volumes devoted to various other kinds of animal forms and of their 
relations to each other, have been a part of the results of this work, and 
an increased knowledge of the complex results involved in river pollu- 
tion is another important outcome. 
