respect to the disease of the latter, Fedchenko showed the
presence therein of small particles called after their discoverer
Cornalia, causing a disease termed pebrine. These particles
were found by him in the eggs, larvae, and moths brought
from Samarkand. The rishta, or guinea-worm (Filaria
medinensis), is found in other places: in Egypt, Arabia, and
India; but in Central Asia it occurs much farther north.
Fedchenko’s investigations showed that the germs with
which the whole body of a rishta (taken out of a man) is
filled, having fallen into water, enter into small crustaceans of
the genus Cyclops, live in them a long time (more than a
month), lose their colour, change their external form, and
begin the development of sexual'organs. The cyclops may
easily be imbibed in drinking water, as it is very small
and colourless, and the further progress of the parasite is
clear ; the sexual organs of the rishtas are developed in
the intestinal canal ; the females, after fecundation by the
males, make their way to the sub-dermal tissues, where they
attain final development, i.e., become filled with living germs,
and at the same time grow to about 3J feet in length. A ll
th is proces of passage and growth occupies about twelve
months ; so that the rishta only manifests itself in the body
of a man in the following year.
These remarks from the Turkistan Annual are interesting
as written by Fedchenko himself, but they are, of course,
the merest drops of what he intended to be a coming shower.*
When he returned to Russia with his immense collections
he summoned to his aid several specialists, to whom respectively
he committed his specimens for description under his
own editorship.
The desire of the Society o f Friends o f Natural History
appears to have been that in each section or subject should
appear not only Fedchenko’s collections, but every species
known in Turkistan, with a short and pithy description of
* M a d a m e F e d c h e n k o h a s b e e n g o o d e n o u g h t o s e n d m e a l i s t o f h e r l a t e
h u s b a n d ’ s p a p e r s a n d - o t h e r p u b l i c a t i o n s , 3 4 i n n u m b e r , a n d m o s t o f t h e m i n
R u s s i a n . M a n y , a p p e a r e d i n t h e Turkistan Gazette f o r 1 8 7 0 - 7 1 ; r e f e r e n c e
w i l l b e f o u n d t o o t h e r s i n M e j o P s “ B i b l i o g r a p h y , ” a n d t o t r a n s l a t i o n s ' i n t h e
b i b l i o g r a p h y a t t a c h e d t o t h i s w o r k .
each, comparisons also being made with the fauna of neighbouring
countries. It was further made a prime matter that
everything as far as possible should be described in Russian
(new species, however, in Latin), the Society having in view
the publication of a work that might serve every inquiring
Russian as a handbook and foster a taste for the study of
Natural History.
This work, so well conceived, extensively planned, and
energetically begun, was, alas ! like so many things in Russia,
never successfully completed. The zealous and indefatigable
Fedchenko, o f whom all speak so highly, lost his life
in 1873, on the Col du Géant, Mont Blanc; and the
chief of the enterprise being thus taken away, the work
has languished. A s it now stands, various sections of
Fedchenko’s “ Puteshestvie v Turkestan',' or “ Travels in
Turkistan, have appeared as follows : A Journey to Khokand,
A . P- Fedchenko; Flora o f Turkistan, I., Primulaceae et
Liltaceae, by R e g e l; Astragalus et Oxytropis, by B un g e ;
Descriptions plantarum novarum, by R e g e l; Mammals, Birds,
Reptiles, and Fishes,* by Severtsoff; Fishes, by Kessler;
Mollusca, by von Martenst; Crustacea, by Ulianint; Araneae,
by Kronebergt; Coleóptera, Parts I. and II., by Solsky ;
Mellifera, I. and II., by Morawitz; Sphegidae, Mutillidae, and
Chrysidiformes, by Radoszkovskyt; Scoliidae and Orthoptera,
by De Saussuret ;• Formicidae, by Mayrt ; Lepidoptera, by
Erschofft; Neuroptera, by MacLachlant (Odonata by Brauert) ;
and Vermes, by Krabbet.; whilst as an appendix to the
“ Tra v e ls ” is published an album of fourteen lithographed
views of Russian Turkistan by Madame Fedchenko.
I accordingly have given Mr. Cromie’s translations of
the various introductions, omitting here and there local
or ephemeral matter, and have added the lists of species,
from which I trust that naturalists will be able to gather
some idea of the Turkistan fauna as a whole; whilst those
* T h i s i n c l u d e d F e d c h e n k o ’ s m a t e r i a l s , b u t i s e n t i t l e d “ V e r t i c a l a n d H o r i z o n t a l
D i s t r i b u t i o n o f T u r k i s t a n A n i m a l s . ”
f - A u t h o r s , m a r k e d t h u s , h a v e k i n d l y r e v i s e d p r o o f - s h e e t s o f t h e i r r e s p e c t i v e
a r t i c l e s a s g i v e n h e r e a f t e r , a n d I a m g r e a t l y i n d e b t e d t o M a d a m e F e d c h e n k o , w h o
h a s l o o k e d t h r o u g h a l m o s t t h e w h o l e o f t h e a p p e n d i c e s o n F a u n a a n d F l o r a
V O L . I I . 3 3