76 PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL, MOTHS. 



official collaborator of the Bureau of Entomology of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, securing leave of absence from 

 the University of Washington, proceeded to Russia, and stationed 

 himself in Bessarabia for the purpose of collecting and sending para- 

 sitized material from that country to the United States. It had been 

 noticed by Mr. Vuillet at Rennes during the preceding summer that all 

 material coming from Russia had been opened on the journey and had 

 deteriorated in consequence. Before Prof. Kincaid's departure from 

 America, Russian officials had been communicated with through 

 correspondence between the chief of the Bureau of Entomology and 

 Prof. Porchinsky, of the ministry of agriculture, and also directly 

 between the United States Department of State and the American 

 ambassador at St. Petersburg through the instigation of the honor- 

 able the Secretary of Agriculture. The United States Government 

 was assured that the Russian Government would welcome the expe- 

 dition and would facilitate the sending of material in every way 

 possible. 



The chief of the bureau landed at Cherbourg May 12. He pro- 

 ceeded immediately to Paris, where a conference had been arranged 

 in advance with M. Oberthur, M. Vuillet, and Mr. Henry Brown, the 

 latter an English entomologist resident in Paris. At this conference 

 it was decided to abandon the forwarding laboratory at Rennes and 

 to station Mr. Vuillet, during the forwarding season, at Cherbourg. 

 He was instructed to engage quarters at that seaport and to arrange 

 for cold-storage facilities, with the intention that shipments from 

 France, Switzerland, and Italy should be forwarded to him to be 

 kept in cold storage until the date of sailing of vessels, and then 

 should be transferred to the cold room of the next steamer, thus 

 practically keeping all living specimens dormant from the time of 

 arrival in Cherbourg until the time of arrival in New York, making 

 the exposure to summer temperature practically only 24 hours or less 

 in Europe and 24 hours or less in the United States. In the mean- 

 time Mr. Oberthur was authorized to arrange for an extensive service 

 in the south of France, through Mr. H. Powell, of Hyeres, one of 

 the agents for the year 1906. The preparation of the requisite boxes 

 was intrusted, as in previous years, to the superintendence of Mr. 

 Oberthur, and Mr. Powell was authorized to engage as many col- 

 lectors as the material Would seem to need, with full instructions as 

 to packing and shipping to Cherbourg. 



The visitor then proceeded to Wageningen, Holland, where he 

 arranged for further assistance from Prof. Dr. J. Ritzema Bos. From 

 there he went to Hamburg, where he arranged with the American 

 Express Co. to care for shipments coming from Germany, Russia, 

 and Austria-Hungary, arrangements being made to keep the material 

 on ice until the next steamer should sail, and in case of the breakage 



