untended. In 1931 the co-operation of the State Department of Conservation was secured in the construction of certain fire lanes on the property; later, with the aid of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the University was able to have some miles of work roads built and the fire lanes extended and improved. These are maintained by annual cultivation. The CCC in 1933 constructed a building for the forestry equipment and in 1934 erected an eighty-five-foot fire tower which had been donated by the Department of Conservation.
The original tract of nearly fourteen hundred acres has been extended by purchase and by acquisition of tax titles. In 1940 it comprised about four thousand acres. Early in 1942, by means of a special legislative act, the State Department of Conservation was enabled to transfer to the University for the purposes of its Biological Station more than three thousand acres of tax-reverted lands which the Department of Conservation had earlier acquired from the state. Nearly half of this new tract is adjacent to the old one, but other parcels are separated.
Instruction at the Biological Station. — Teaching is an important function of the Biological Station. With few exceptions the courses offered have supplemented instruction given in colleges and universities, and emphasis has been placed upon field work, but not to the exclusion of work in the laboratory and the library, the degree of emphasis upon each aspect depending upon the course and upon the special interests of the instructors and the students.
In the following brief account of the courses subject matter can be indicated only by titles. It is impossible to describe clearly the changes in content, method, and emphasis as the professors changed.
Zoology. — Courses treating the field aspects of vertebrates have been an important part of the offerings of the Station from the beginning. The first course was entitled the Natural History of Vertebrate Animals. With some changes in title and emphasis this course was given by Jacob E. Reighard (1909, 1911-12), Norman H. Stewart (1910), Max M. Ellis (1913-17), and Frank Smith (1919-22) for two hours of credit. Reighard emphasized behavior and evolution in lecture and library work, but field studies received attention. Stewart gave emphasis to field studies, Ellis and Smith to ecology and taxonomy. This course was replaced by Ichthyology, two hours, and Herpetology and Mammalogy, two hours, both offered by Francis Harper in 1923 and 1924 and by Charles W. Creaser since 1925.
Birds were included in Natural History during the years 1909 and 1910, but in 1911 became the object of a separate two-hour course, the Natural History of Birds, given by Smith and continued by Smith and John S. Dexter (1912), Ellis and James S. Compton (1913), Compton alone (1914), Norman A. Wood (1915), and Reuben M. Strong (1916). The title was changed to Ornithology in 1917, and under this name the course was given successively by Strong (1917), Roland F. Hussey (1918), Dayton Stoner (1919-20), Zeno P. Metcalf (1921), Frank N. Blanchard (1922-27, 1929-37), Alfred O. Gross (1928) while Blanchard was on leave, and Olin S. Pettingill (1938 — ). Because of increased interest in the subject, Advanced Ornithology was started by Blanchard in 1923. For many years the enrollment in the elementary ornithology course was higher than that in any other course except Entomology.
The invertebrates have always received their share of attention. Reighard gave a course entitled Fresh-Water Biology, two hours credit, in 1909. This course gave way in 1910 to the Natural History of Invertebrates, by Arthur S.
