196 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



This Central Agricultural Station was closed in 1914, on account 

 of the revolution, and all scientific work was stopped. In 191 5 the 

 Direccion General de Agricultura created a new department under the 

 name " Departmento de Plagas," with Dr. Roman Ramirez as chief, 

 and A. Madariaga, A. Nunez, O. Tellez and L. Conradt as collabo- 

 rators ; and in 1917 L. de la Barreda, one of the members of the 

 extinct Parasitological Commission, joined the force. In 1919 the 

 name was changed to " Seccion de Plagas," and in 1923 Doctor Ra- 

 mirez resigned. In 1924 the office was removed to Chapingo and 

 incorporated in the Agricultural College as a section of the Depart- 

 ment of Laboratories, with Madariaga, Conradt, de la Barreda and 

 Dr. Alfons Dampf as scientific staff. 



Doctor Dampf was a man of excellent training who had formerly 

 been Entomologist of German East Africa and since 1920 had been 

 the head of the Entomological Department of the Zoological Museum 

 of Koenigsberg and lecturer on economic entomology. He was invited 

 by the Mexican government to take the chair of Entomology in the 

 National Agricultural College, and arrived in Mexico in September, 

 1923. There had, however, been political changes in the government, 

 and the new administration could not fulfill the promises of the old 

 one. He was temporarily offered a position as Microbiologist in the 

 Department of Laboratories in Chapingo, but soon resigned and 

 joined a commission of the Mexican Public Plealth Department which 

 was going to the State of Vera Cruz to study the migratory locust 

 which had invaded the State in a disastrous way. In the autumn of 

 1924 he traveled in the State of Vera Cruz, made observations on the 

 biology of the Schistoccrca paranensis, and published his results 

 in 1925. 



In the meantime the Section of Parasitology at Chapingo had been 

 suppressed by the government for lack of activity, and the new Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture, Ing. Luis L. Leon, organized a new body entitled 

 (translated) " Locust Control Board," with headquarters in Vera 

 Cruz, Doctor Dampf being appointed Entomologist to the Board. 

 Doctor Dampf started promptly and very wisely to Yucatan, British 

 Honduras, and Guatemala, searching for the permanent breeding 

 grounds of the locust. He found on the shores of Lake Peten in 

 Guatemala a sedentary form of what appeared to be Schistoccra para- 

 nensis. By later breeding ex^^eriments in Vera Cruz he showed the 

 existence of two forms of the same species, just as has been done with 

 the migratory locusts of Europe, Asia and Africa by Uvarov, John- 

 ston, Faure, and others. In 1926 another expedition was made to the 

 highlands of Giiapas. 



