OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XI, 1909. 193 



and birds. Possibly the most striking exhibit is tin- famous 

 hairy mammoth of the Lena. On the ground floor the inter- 

 minable dark corridors are lined with cases of alcoholic spec- 

 imens of fishes, reptiles, and marine invertebrates. The labor- 

 atory rooms are apparently all on the ground floor. Tilt- 

 entomological department is large, and consists of a series of 

 communicating rooms with windows on one side. The cases 

 are arranged along the unlighted walls and in transverse 

 stacks, the passages bet\veen the cases being narrow Inn abun- 

 dantly lighted by hanging electric bulbs, which can be turned 

 on whenever it is necessary to examine cases or labels. Thr 

 insect exhibit is in the gallery above the main zoological depart- 

 ment. It is contained in upright glass cases, each prctectcl 

 from light by a curtain drawn by a spring which closes a 

 ^piral on a rod above. 



The personnel of the entomological department is very- 

 interesting. The Director of the Zoological Department is 

 an entomologist, Professor Xassunow. He is a tall, distin- 

 guished man, of apparently sixty ; speaks no English. He is an 

 authority on the Cocci che, and presented me with his papers. 

 The Academy apparently has no collection of (.'occid;e, and 

 Professor Nassunow keeps his own collection at his home, so 

 that I did not see it. The well-known orthopterist Adclung 

 was -not at the museum at the time of my visit, although con- 

 nected with the department. George Jacobsen in Coleoptera, 

 Kusnezov in Lepidoptera. Mordwilcko in the Aphidid:e, and 

 Oshanin in the Heteroptera, were all there and were all fine, 

 cordial men. Kusnezov is a bright, handsome fellow of about 

 thirty-five, and is just completing a monograph of the Lepi- 

 doptera of Siberia. He was in America at the time of the 

 Zoological Congress, and speaks some English, George Jacob- 

 sen, a short, active, rather near-sighted man of about the same 

 age, is a coleopterist and a capital fellow : <peaks so: in 1 

 German. Oshanin is a short, gray-bearded man aboul seventy, 

 a delightful companion, knows a little English, and is anxious 

 to get Palearctic Hemiptera. lie told me that the museum 

 has only about thirty North American species. IK- has been 

 a correspondent of I'hler and Van Duzee. Mcrrl iV ilcko is a 

 stout, short, black-haired man, with a black beard, of from 

 thirty-five to forty, speaks nothing but Russian, and is anxious 

 to get a complete set of North American Aphidid.-e. 



The collection of the society is very rich in mam directions 

 1 was particularly interested to find a large series of Arnold 

 I'Ytrster's named species, and to find further from an examin- 



