= i) 
way to the progress of knowledge in this department of 
biology. 
INSECTS AND LEECHES. 
Work on aquatic insects has been more or less sytem- 
atically pursued by Mr. Hart, and a paper jointly prepared by 
himself, Prof. J. G. Needham, now of Lake Forest University, 
and Mr. C. C. Adams, formerly a Laboratory Assistant, is at 
present being copied for publication. 
The Ilinois leeches accumulated during several years 
past have been lately critically studied by Mr. J. Percy Moore, 
of the University of Pennsylvania, and a paper giving the re- 
sults of his determinations and embodying also the observa- 
tions of our collectors is now going through the press as an 
article in the Laboratory Bulletin. 
DISTRIBUTION TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
As several years have elapsed since our last distribution 
of natural history specimens to public schools, during which 
many thousands of named duplicates have been accumulated, 
I began last winter preparations for another distribution of 
surplus material and sent to twenty schools a first instalment 
of such collections. This instalment consisted of marine and 
fresh-water specimens in alcohol and formalin, the marine 
material being mainly that derived from the Aquarium of the 
U.S. Fish Commission at the close of the Exposition of 18938, 
and the fresh-water specimens being accumulated in the course 
of our regular work. From twenty-five to sixty species were 
included in each collection, representing in each case the im- 
portant groups of animals. Several months’ work of one 
assistant has been devoted to this distribution and to prepara- 
tions for a much larger issue of insects and other dried speci- 
mens to be finished the coming winter. 
PUBLICATIONS. 
The publications of the State Laboratory during the last 
two years comprise nine Bulletin articles, containing two hun- 
dred and thirty-eight pages and illustrated by six plates. 
These articles are purely technical, valuable to students of 
