From his childhood he had been greatly attracted by natural history. As a boy he had a small zoo of his own, rearing young birds, goldfish, squirrels, etc. Very early and with remarkable success he started collecting Lepidoptera, already at the high school age possessing a collection of over 10,000 specimens. As a university student he continued his study in earnest. A collection of Lepidoptera from the environment of Rostov was donated by him to the municipal museum of that town, numbering over 40,000 specimens.
In 1924 Dr. Toll returned to his native country and settled in the town of Bydgoszcz, where he was married and where his only child, a daughter — now a doctor of medicine, a pediatrician, — was born. Again Toll continued the collecting and study of the Lepidoptera. From that time date his first scientific publications. His bibliography (which is published in the Zeitschrift der Wiener ent. Verein) contains 87 titles. In total he described about 270 new species and forms of Lepidoptera.
He was also interested in the study of birds and left a collection of birds' eggs, comprising over 12,000 pieces, dating from his time in Bydgoszcz.
In 1934 the family moved to Katowice in Upper Silesia. With great energy Toll continued his lepidopterological studies and dedicated to them all his time. His wife helped him with the rearing of material.
Dr. Toll was a talented and zealous taxonomist with a keen eye for subtle specific differences. This may be the reason why he selected as his specialty the study of a difficult group, the family Eupistidas or Coleophoridse, comprising numerous species all over the world. He was an excellent draftsman. His richly and beautifully illustrated papers give evidence of great accuracy and taxonomic insight. His figures of the male genitalia of the species are somewhat schematized, but he put in them all the important characters. His 1952 monographic treatise of the Polish Eupistidse is a standard work of great value.
Two other publications may be mentioned as examples of Toll's very keen ability of discrimination: "Drei weitere neue Arten der Familie Tortricidae aus Polen" (Ann. Zool. Warszawa, vol.17; 1958), in which Bactra gozmanyana Toll is separated, and "Studies on species of the Lepidoptera of the group Caccecia podana Scop, and Pyrausta sanguinalis L.", where the difficult podana group is excellently analyzed.
During the last years his interest was more and more attracted by the fauna of some of the fascinating peripheral lands of the Palearctic region: Siberia, Persia, North Africa. Alas, his untimely death put a stop to his fertile activity.
Toll leaves an excellent collection of Lepidoptera, certainly the best one of the Polish fauna and of many other regions, comprising over
47-Diakonoff-1.jpg)