5 
ent institutions, examples of all rare or especially desirable plants 
in other orders. His activity and success as a collector are evi- 
denced by the fact that he has used, during this year and a half of 
field work, more than 3,500 catalogue numbers, and has sent to the 
Laboratory not far from 200,000 specimens. In addition to the prep- 
aration of these for the Herbarium, Miss Fell has mounted over 
1,000 slides of fungi for the microscope. 
STATE MUSEUM. 
The collections sent to this institution during previous years natu- 
rally represented the most abundant species, as a general rule, and 
were consequently larger than those made this year, for which we 
have had to draw on much rarer material. .Nevertheless, large ad- 
ditions will be made to the number of fishes, insects and plants in 
the Museum (especially of the last), as fast as they are determined. 
The work on these collections has not yet progressed far enough, 
however, to enable us even to estimate the amount available for the 
Museum. A mounted elk (female) has been placed in the exhibition 
room since my last report, and several casts of fishes, mounted 
birds, and skeletons of mammals and birds, are now ready for ship- 
ment. A collection of sixty species of eges and twenty-five of nests 
is also ready. ‘T'wenty-one skeletons, engaged of Mr. C. W. Butler, 
and intended for the Museum, were unfortunately burned while still 
in his possession. 
STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 
It is also impossible to estimate with any exactness the material 
aow in hand for the State Industrial University at Champaign, or 
she Southern Hlinois Normal at Carbondale. The collections prom- 
sed by my last report were forwarded about as there represented, and 
similar ones will be ready by January 1. Besides these, skins of 
ifty-nine species of birds were sent to the Southern Illinois Normal 
n 1881, and twenty-nine species were sent at the same time to the 
industrial at Champaign. 
SUPPLY OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS. 
Hight thousand specimens were distributed to thirty public hich 
schools, about six thousand of them insects, the remainder nearly 
ul fishes and marine invertebrates. The schools supplied were se- 
ected according to their necessities, by the plan explained in my 
wrevious report. At least as Jarge a number of other schools will 
ve furnished with similar sets of specimens this fall. Circulars of 
nquiry respecting the needs of the schools have recently been sent 
yut to those not reached last year, and twenty-seven replies request- 
ng sets of specimens, and promising proper facilities for their ar- 
fangement and preservation, have already been received. 
INVESTIGATION OF THE FOOD OF BIRDS. 
‘The collection designed to illustrate the food of birds has been 
ore than doubled in the last two years, and now numbers over six 
