3IO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



injurious to agriculture during the year. These reports, 13 in all and 

 published between 1875 and 1890, were issued partly in the reports 

 of the State Agricultural Council, partly by the Society for Physio- 

 kratie, and partly privately by the author. One hundred and eight 

 species are included in these reports, and of these, 18 occur in the 

 United States as introductions from Europe. 



My friend. Dr. S. Soudek, of the Agricultural College at Brno, 

 informs me that the real father of work in economic entomology in 

 Bohemia, however, was Dr. Karel Slavoj Amerling, a physician, 

 philosopher, and scientist, who started the Physiokratic Society in 

 Prague. Amerling published, among many other things, several papers 

 on economic entomology, with illustrations. He also studied insects 

 and their host plants in mutual relation in what he called a " nature 

 complex" — really what is now (following Moebius) biocoenosis. 

 Most of Amerling's publications concern scale insects and mites. The 

 elder Nickerl was a collaborator of Amerling ; and the young one, as 

 we have just seen, followed him. 



Doctor Soudek places the founding of the Bohemian Entomological 

 Society in Prague in 1904 as the next most important step in the 

 development of entomology, including economic entomology, in the 

 Czech parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. This he has told 

 me was due to Frant. Klapalek, a well known specialist in the insects 

 of the Pseudoneuropteroid series. The principal name among the 

 very few economic entomologists of that time was that of Dr. J. Uzel, 

 whose very sound studies of the Thysanoptera became well known. 

 U/.el was the head of the Entomological Section of the Research 

 Institute of the Sugar Industry. 



There were no special institutions devoted to economic entomology 

 or plant pathology in what is now Czechoslovakia until after the 

 revolution of 1918. Then the Czechoslovakian Government organized 

 four phytopathological research institutions (phytopathology here in 

 the very objectionable European manner, covering economic ento- 

 mology as well). These institutions were ])laced in Prague, Brno, 

 Bratislava, and Kosice, and a research institution for forest protection 

 was established in Prague. 



All of these institutions have done good work, with control pre- 

 dominantly in view. It is possible that they have suffered, however, 

 on the research side on account of the lack of specialists who are able 

 to confine themselves to one particular branch of work. But a great 

 deal of excellent work is being done. Dr. J. Komarek is the Professor 

 of Applied Zoology, and I think Phytopathology, at Charles Univer- 

 sity at Prague, and has been doing excellent work, mainly on forest 



