[4] His friend Anton Chekhov was inspired to write the novella, "The Duel", based on discussions with Wagner.

His next major work was on the taxonomy of spiders, making use of such features as the construction pattern of webs.

In 1901 his doctoral dissertation was on biological methods in zoopsychology (behavior) with an evolutionary perspective.

[7] In 1896 he became a departmental head at the Catherine Institute and in 1906 became a director at the Imperial Commercial School while also serving as a private associate professor at the St. Petersburg University.

He argued with the school of Pavlov and believed that instinct varied and that not everything could be reduced to reflex actions.