FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



and boarded vessels of many nations anchored in the harbor. 

 It must have been a scene o£ frightful confusion. Mokrzecki and 

 his daughter managed to reach a vessel that carried them to 

 Constantinople. His wife and son probably boarded some other 

 vessel. At all events, they were separated and, so far as I know, 

 they have never come together again. Eventually Mokrzecki 

 and his daughter reached Belgrade, where for a time he taught 

 in a local institution. I have since met one of his laboratory 

 assistants there, Madame Anna Bragina, a most intelligent 

 woman, who had studied in Jugoslavia the parasites and the 

 ecology of several imported pests, and who, since the war, has 

 been of much assistance to the experts of the United States 

 Bureau of Entomology. Later, Mokrzecki and his daughter went 

 on to Poland. He is now in charge of the entomology at the 

 important agricultural college at Skierniewice, where I visited 

 him in 1927. The little girl whom I had known in the Crimea 

 twenty years before had grown into a beautiful woman and 

 was married, but she and her husband lived with her father, 

 who then held, and still holds, a high place in the esteem of the 

 agricultural ministry of Poland. 



Many stories could be told concerning the work I did in 

 Europe between 1902 and 1912, relating to this parasite intro- 

 duction. A number of countries were visited, and I had some 

 amusing adventures. Excellent services were started in a number 

 of countries, and hundreds of thousands of parasitized cater- 

 pillars were sent to the United States. The most perfect arrange- 

 ments were made with the European shipping authorities, and 

 the late United States despatch agent of New York, Mr. I. P. 

 Roosa, took the keenest interest in the work and helped us in 

 many ways. I should say a special word for the American Ex- 

 press Company. The agents of this organization at Paris, Mar- 

 seilles and Havre, at Hamburg and at Naples, may have re- 



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