THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



After a day in Kiew, a beautiful place on the banks of the 

 Dnieper (then in flood), and with an extraordinarily beautiful 

 cathedral, we took train for Odessa, and from there made a trip 

 to Kischiniew, where a similar station was established under 

 the charge of Professor Isaak Krassiltschik. 



Returning to Odessa, we took boat for Sebastopol, where I 

 found letters from Professor Sigismund Mokrzecki of Simfero- 

 pol, a well-known economic entomologist, asking me to meet 

 him at Bachtisserai, halfway between Sebastopol and Simfero- 

 pol, in the heart of the agricultural region of the Crimea. As 

 it happened, dear old Pichler, the courier, had developed an 

 enormous carbuncle between his shoulders, which completely 

 incapacitated him. So, leaving him in the hands of a surgeon, 

 I started with the hotel porter, who spoke German, on the 

 morning train to Bachtisserai. On the station platform there I 

 met Mokrzecki, accompanied by the Chief of Police and his 

 bulldog, and by a General Miiller, who had come with him from 

 Simferopol as interpreter, since he had spoken English since his 

 boyhood days passed in an English school. The porter from 

 Sebastopol took the train back to that city, and the three of us 

 proceeded to an enormous farm owned by a count whose name 

 I have forgotten, where we were met by the manager, a most 

 intelligent man by the name of Andrieff. Neither Andrieff nor 

 Mokrzechi was content to wait until their Russian was trans- 

 lated into English by General Miiller, so, since Mokrzecki knew 

 a little German, and Andriefl rather more French, the conversa- 

 tion was mostly carried on in those two languages, except when 

 General Miiller insisted on talking to me on his own account. 



We spent the next two hours walking through the enormous 

 apple orchards of the estate, which were at that time in full 

 bloom (it must have been about the sixth of May). Never have 

 I seen finer trees or more healthy ones. At the recommendation 



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