This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
These papers consist of professional correspondence between Busck and his colleagues and other collectors on entomological subjects. Correspondence with Edward Meyrick
and Lord Walsingham (Thomas deGrey) may be of special interest. Related material is in the National Museum of Natural History, Department of Entomology: August Busck's Copy
of Meyrick's Microlepidoptera, includes extensive marginalia and interleaved correspondence; and August Busck's Rearing Notebooks.
Historical Note:
August Busck (1870-1944) was born and educated in Denmark. In 1893, he came to the United States and settled in West Virginia, where he became an American citizen.
After an interval as a florist, Busck began work for the United States Department of Agriculture in 1896, where he remained until his retirement in 1940. A friend and colleague
of both Lord Walsingham and Edward Meyrick, Busck was himself a microlepidopterist of real distinction. He made numerous field trips on expeditions into various regions of
the western hemisphere, as well as conducting field studies in the United States. While his knowledge of the Lepidoptera was extensive, Busck chose to restrict his main efforts
to American fauna, especially the groups formerly known as the Tineira and Torticina.
