8 
No. 3 of the Laboratory, now in press, will be devoted to a further 
discussion of this subject. A supplementary report of the food of 
the thrush family, and other papers, giving a full account of the 
food of the bluebird and the meadow-lark, have also been prepared 
for the forthcoming volume of. the “State Horticultural Society.” | 
Besides the direct study of this subject, much imecidental work has | 
been required on related subjects. It was found impossible satis- 
factorily to determine the fragments of insects found in the food of 
birds without a cabinet of microscope slides of insect structures, for 
reference and comparison. Four hundred and eighty-eight of these 
were therefore prepared, and others are added, from time to time, — 
as occasion requires. Various manuscript keys to the genera of 
insects, based upon those structures which have been found to last 
longest in the stomachs of birds, have also been prepared for use 
in this work. Some of these have apparently a general and per- 
manent value. The discovery that several of our commonest birds 
feed, to a considerable extent, on beneficial insects, led to a more 
critical study of the food of our predaceous beetles than had hith- 
erto been attempted; and in the course of this investigation dissec- 
tions of forty beetles were made, and eighty slides were prepared 
of the contents of the alimentary canal, for study and permanent 
preservation. A paper on this subject will also appear in the next 
Bulletin of the Laboratory. A large number of slides of the seeds 
of plants have also been mounted for reference in studying the food 
of the granivorous birds. 
INVESTIGATION. OF THE FOOD OF FISHES. 
The results of the investigation of the food of fishes have like- 
wise proved of special interest and value. The method used was 
in all respects similar to that of the preceding research. Papers 
embracing the results of a careful study of the contents of six hun- 
dred stomachs are now in press, and will appear in the next Bulletin 
of the Laboratory. Satisfactory conclusions have been reached 
respecting the food of most of the species of our spiny-finned fishes, 
and the food of the young of several genera of other orders. There 
are probably one thousand stomachs of fishes in alcohol, yet to be 
examined. 
PUBLICATION OF BULLETINS. 
The appropriation made for this purpose, at the last session of 
the legislature, was $250 per annum. Although the class and 
origin of the papers whose publication was thus provided for was 
not indicated by the law, I have inferred that it was intended that 
this fund should be used, primarily, for the publication of reports 
upon those subjects which we were required to investigate at the 
Laboratory, since these investigations would have been of no gen- 
eral value unless the results were published. I have also provided, 
as far as the funds would allow, for the publication of such original 
papers upon the natural history of the State as were offered by 
their authors, preferring among these such as related to subjects 
bearing more or less directly upon the birds and fishes of the State. 
—l] 
