298 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



in 1916. He was an extensive traveler in Russia and Siberia, study- 

 ing local pests, not only of agricultural crops but also of domestic 

 animals and of man. His main work was on the biology of insects and 

 especially the biology of Diptcra. Certain of his papers dealt with 

 folk-lore and popular superstitions connected with insects. He was 

 a tall, bearded, imposing individual, who spoke French excellently 

 but had no English. 



Not long after his connection with the Ministry of Agriculture at 

 St. Petersburg, Porchinsky published, in 1879, in the Russian lan- 

 guage, a. 70 page pamphlet on the pernicious insects in the South of 

 Russia. The only species referred to by their Latin names are Ccphus 

 pyguiaeus, Anisoplia austriaca, and Dorcadion. 



While in St. Petersburg. I went to the great Imperial Museum and 

 met the workers there. I rememl^er especially Adelung, Kusnezov. 

 Georg Jacobsen, Oshanin, and Mordwilko. The great entomological 

 collections were in the basement of the Museum. 



On this trip I visited Moscow, seeing the poorly arranged collec- 

 tions of insects there and finding that there were a number of boxes 

 of unidentified parasitic Hymenoptera that had been collected in the 

 Transcaspian country. The most important feature of this visit to 

 Moscow was a call on Prof. Nikolas Kulagin at the Agricultural 

 College at Petrovsky, about 12 miles from Moscow. At that time 

 Kulagin was a handsome, rather slender man, of medium height, 

 perhaps 45 years of age. He was neatly dressed and had a short, well- 

 cared-for beard. He spoke French readily, and ])roved to l)e excel- 

 lently informed on entomology in general and highly appreciative of 

 the importance of economic entomology. He was the author of very 

 many l)ooks and pamphlets. From the standpoint of economic ento- 

 mology, i)rol)ably the most important of these works was a large vol- 

 ume entitled " Injurious Insects and the Means of Controlling Them." 

 I have before me the second edition, published in Moscow in 1913. 

 It covers 783 pages, is printed entirely in the Russian language, and 

 contains no illustrations. A separate atlas was promised, but so far 

 as I know was never pul)lished. In his preface, the author states that 

 the methods of fighting insects are very far from being thoroughly 

 known, and that in this book he gives the methods that have been 

 suggested and which it is desirable to test on a large scale. The work- 

 lacks a bibliographical list, but there are brief references in footnotes, 

 largely to Russian writings. 



Some years ago I asked Mr. Jacob Kotinsky (a Russian) to go 

 through this Ixiok rather carefully. He found it difficult to do so, 

 owing to the absence of illustrations, bibliographical lists, and adequate 



