89 



of the coniinissioi]. This commission not only answers all questions 

 directed to it, but sends out specialists to different neighhorino- dis- 

 tricts to conduct investigations on demand. 



The bulk of this information concerning the status of affairs in Eussia 

 I have received through the kindness of Dr. Nicolas Cholodkowsky, 

 professor in the Forestry Institute and in the Imperial Academy of 

 Medicine at St. Petersburg. 1 have also corresi)onded witli Dr. K. 

 Lindeman, a well known writer on entomology, whose work has been 

 more accessible to American and English investigators for the reason 

 that many of his papers have been published in the German language. 

 He writes me that while he holds no official position, he has been cir- 

 culating many thousands of copies of brochures upon entomological 

 subjects, and has given lectures upon the subject of economic ento- 

 mology in various cities. He receives annually from -100 to 500 invoices 

 of insects, and inquiries regarding the best means of lighting them. 

 He is at present advocating the establishment of separate commissions 

 on economic entomology at various points throughout the empire, with 

 a central entomological commission at the Ministry of Agriculture at 

 St. Petersburg. 



FINLAND. 



Finland, although an administrative province of Russia, at the last 

 quinquennial meeting of the Diet made an independent effort to secure 

 the establishment of an entomological experiment station. The reso- 

 lution was in the form of an application to His Imperial Majesty to 

 bring about the establishment of such a station. Three of the four 

 chambers composing the Diet voted affirmatively on the resolution. 

 These were the nobility, clergy, and bourgeoisie, but curiously enough 

 the fourth chamber, the farmers or peasants, voted against it. It is 

 likely, however, that such a station will be established in the near 

 future, and that Mr. Enzio Keuter will be its director, as I am informed 

 by Mr. Lampa. 



SOUTH AMERICA. 



The ravages of the migratory locust in South America have attracted 

 considerable attention, and in several states fugitive commissions have 

 been formed for the investigation of this insect. Dr. Herman Bur- 

 meister, the famous author of the Handbucli der Entomologie, and for 

 many years resident in Buenos Ayres in the capacity of director of the 

 National Museum, while not official entomologist to the Argentine 

 Republic, devoting most of his time to the study of palieontology and 

 the building up of a general museum, made large collections of insects, 

 and in 1861, in his Reise durch die Plata Staaten, a two- volume work 

 published in Halle, utilized his ofticial observations to summarize 

 previous writings upon locusts in Argentina and to give a compara- 

 tively full account of the life history of the insect and the damage which 

 it almost annually produced. In the same way Dr. H. Weyenbergh 



