290 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



A contemporary of Linnaeus, the Rev. Gas Bjerkander (1735- 

 1795), wrote about 26 papers on noxious insects, mainly on pests 

 of grain, and was the first to describe a number of the most impor- 

 tant enemies of grains. In 1877 he published an important paper on 

 Siphonclla pumilonis, and in 1778 a paper on Hadena secalis and 

 H. tritici. In 1779 he published for the first time about wireworms, 

 and in 1790 about thrips. His papers were full of good field obser- 

 vations, and were soon translated into other languages. At this time 

 also there were many other workers who occupied themselves to a 

 certain extent with injurious insects. The physician, A. Beck, and 

 Prof. M.'Stromer wrote about Charaeas graminis (1741 and 1742) ; 

 D. Rolander on Hadena secalis (1752) ; and the Professor of Chem 

 istry in Upsala, T. Bergman (1735-1784) about Cheimatohia hru- 

 niata. This paper, printed in the year 1763, is of importance because 

 it proposes for the first time the method of tarred wrappers on the 

 trunks of the trees. Dr. Kemner thinks that Bergman also can be 

 regarded as the inventor of lime girdles against Cheimatohia. The 

 last decades of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth cen- 

 turies were less interesting in Sweden from the standpoint of eco- 

 nomic entomology. But in the year 1837 ^^s published Dahlbom's 

 excellent work, " Kort underrattelse om skandinaviska insekters 

 allmannare skada och nytta " (Lund, 1837) (= " Short information 

 about the damage and utility of Scandinavian insects"). Dahlljom 

 (1806-1859) was lecturer in entomology at the University of Lund, 

 a friend and disciple of the famous dipterologist, Zetterstedt, and 

 himself a well known worker on certain Hymcnoptera. His book on 

 the noxious insects is, for that time, a good synopsis of applied 

 entomology, and he must be ranked with the contemporary German 

 authors on the same subject, Bouche (1833). and Ratzeburg (1837). 



After Dahlbom, A. E. Holmgren was the leader of applied ento- 

 mology in Sweden. He was a specialist on the Ichneumonidae. and 

 was lecturer on natural history at the Institute of Forestry in Stock- 

 iiolm, teaching ])ractical entomology both there and (during his vaca- 

 tion) at the Agricultural School at Alnarp. He did a great deal to 

 popularize entomology in Sweden, and wrote three handbooks on 

 economic entomology — in 1867, a " Forest Entomology " ; in 1873. an 

 "Agricultural Entomology"; and in 1880, a "Manual on Llousehold 

 Insects." All these books were infiuenced by foreign works on the 

 same subjects, but they all contained good original observations made 

 in Sweden. 



Down to this time economic entomology had no official govern- 

 mental standing in Sweden, and the papers on the subject were all 



