After reviewing the history of Survey work in the United States from 1889 to the present date, and recounting earlier attempts at this type of work by the Bureau of Entomology, the scope and objects of Survey work were set forth in the following words: “As I now conceive the scope of our work, the object of the Insect Pest Survey is to collect accurate and detailed information on occurrences, distribution, ecology, and relative destructiveness of insect pests throughout the United States,- to study these data from month to month, and year to year, with relation to the several factors that influence insect abundance, and to prepare this information and the conclusions drawn there from in the form of maps and text for the use of all entomological workers throughout the country,” with the ultimate object of eventually delineating insect zones in the United States and forecasting insect outbreaks. An analysis of the chinch bug outbreaks in the State of Kansas during the past fifty years brought out a very decided correlation between the mean annual rainfall and the optimum chinch bug belt in that state. The main thesis brought forward was that Survey work, i.e., the accurate recording of insect abundance from year to year, will indicate, after a reasonable number of years, the zone of optimum ecologic conditions affecting any given insect, and the yearly abundance of an insect will be determined by the departures from these optimum conditions.