NARRATIVE OF PROGRESS OF WORK. 77 



or other bad condition of packages arrangements were made with 

 Dr. L. Reh, of the Hamburg Museum, to act as expert adviser of the 

 express company. 



From Hamburg he proceeded to Berlin for a short consultation 

 with Dr. R. Heymons, and thence to St. Petersburg. At St. Peters- 

 burg he was assured by Mr. Montgomery Schuyler, the secretary of 

 the embassy, that all arrangements had been made with the Russian 

 Government, and the same assurance was given by Prof. Porchinsky. 

 The Russian officials insisted that none of the 1908 packages going 

 out of Russia had been opened by the Russian postal authorities, and 

 stated that in their opinion the opening must have been done at the 

 German frontier by German officials. A strong letter was then writ- 

 ten to the Hon. David J. Hill, United States ambassador to Germany, 

 reciting the facts, dwelling upon the importance to America of these 

 importations, and urging him to secure from the German Govern- 

 ment orders to postal officials to pass without opening boxes of these 

 parasites addressed to the American Express Co. in Hamburg. Later, 

 in Dresden, a reply was received from Ambassador Hill, stating that 

 the German Government consented to issue the necessary instruc- 

 tions, but still later, in Paris, an additional communication from the 

 ambassador requested detailed information as to the points on the 

 German frontier where these sendings would enter the Empire. By 

 telegraphic communication with Prof. Kincaid, in southern Russia, 

 and the Austrian agents, this information was furnished, but there 

 seems still to have been some opening of the Russian boxes with 

 resulting damage to their contents. 



After Russia, Dresden, Tetschen, Vienna, Budapest, Innsbruck, 

 Zurich, and Paris were consecutively visited, and agents were 

 instructed concerning the new arrangements for shipping material. 

 At Innsbruck the visitor met for the first time Prof. K. W. von Dalla 

 Torre, the author of the great catalogue of the Hymenoptera of the 

 world, and got his views on the subject of the parasitic Hymenoptera 

 and their practical handling. 



From Paris he took a trip into Normandy and Brittany with Dr. 

 Paul Marchal, of the ministry of agriculture of France, and Mr. Rene 

 Oberthur, for the pupose of examining into the export nursery indus- 

 try, and at the same time with a view of observing gipsy-moth and 

 brown-tail moth conditions in that part of France. (See PL III, 

 fig. 2.\ It transpired that both of the injurious insects were unusu- 

 ally abundant in portions of this territory, and by good fortune a 

 small oak forest covering some hundreds of acres was found not far 

 from Nantes, in which there had been an outbreak of the gipsy-moth 

 more serious than either Dr. Marchal or Mr. Oberthur had ever seen 

 or had ever heard of in France. Practically every tree was defoli- 

 ated (see PI, III; Hg. 1), and at the time of the visit, the last week 



