cabin boat leased this summer, although the best within our 
reach, was too small for our purpose and extremely uncomfort- 
able in hot weather, the temperature in the working room 
often rising considerably above 100° Fah., and we should 
have a boat of :this kind built especially for our purpose. 
This boat should be equipped with a larger experimental 
apparatus than we had this year, useful for a study of life 
histories, for a demonstration of the effects of changed con- 
ditions on various species kept in confinement, and for other 
similar work, by which alone clues may be found to the highly 
complicated and extremely difficult problems presenting them- 
selves to the field observer. A great amount of time and 
strength has been consumed in rowing from station to station, 
where our regular collections were made, and we should have 
a small steam or naphtha launch or tug, able to weather the 
summer storms. 
It has fortunately happened this year that: changes in the 
University courses in my department have released the equip- 
ment and the corps of instruction of the zodlogical laboratories 
for the spring and autumn terms, and I have thus been able to 
borrow for the Station a part of the University material, and to 
assign to the Station work a part of our force engaged for other 
purposes. This will usually be impossible hereafter, and con- 
siderable additions to the Station equipment and a larger salary 
list will consequently be required. An estimate, in detail, of the 
appropriations necessary to make these improvements and carry 
out these plans has already been submitted to your Committee 
on Legislative Appropriations, and I will here only suggest that 
it seems to me desirable that the University and the State Lab- 
oratory should continue to share the labors and expenses of 
the Station, since its work is equally advantageous to the de- 
partments of instruction and to the Natural History Survey of 
the State. 
THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF THE CHINCH BUG. 
As an important part of the work of the State Laboratory, I 
have further to report the experimental operations of the present 
year with methods for the prevention and arrest of ravages by 
chinch bugs in Illinois. 
