42 PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 21, NO. 3, MAR., 1919 



some work on mosquitoes), as to the best observer known to him 

 who could undertake the study of the biology of the mosquitoes 

 of the New England region, and Doctor Dimmock promptly 

 nominated Mr. Knab. Knab went to work with energy and 

 enthusiasm, and during the summer of 1903 brought together 

 some very important notes and sent in a report illustrated by 

 drawing which were so admirable as to command the greatest 

 respect. It was during this work that Knab first got the idea 

 that certain of the northern mosquitoes do not follow in their 

 life histories the generalizations which had been laid down as 

 belonging to the genus Culex. The drawings submitted were 

 so excellent that when in the autum of that year Professor Forbes, 

 the State Entomologist of Illinois, found himself in need of an 

 artist Mr. Knab was recommended for the post and went to Ur- 

 bana where he worked until the close of the following year. 



The Carnegie appropriations continuing he was then brought 

 to Washington, and started in 1905 on his first trip to Mexico 

 in the interests of the proposed monograph. A brief account of 

 this trip and of his subsequent travels and activities in this di- 

 rection will be found in the introduction to the monograph, of 

 which he was eventually made co-author in collaboration with 

 Howard and Dyar. He was appointed an assistant in the Bureau 

 of Entomology in 1900, and his work upon mosquitoes and other 

 disease-bearing Diptera continued with increasing interest and 

 importance. In 1911, after the death of the late D. W. Coquillett, 

 he was made Custodian of the Diptera of the U. S. National 

 Museum, which broadened his field of work. Intensely interested 

 and absorbed, though he was, in the preparation of the final 

 volumes of the mongraph in which his work cannot be too greatly 

 praised, he found time to make many interesting observations 

 and a few broad generalizations which showed that he had a very 

 philosophical mind and that he was a keen observer and a keen 

 reasoner. In the early part of his work upon the monograph, 

 Jae prepared the extraordinary plates of mosquito larvae, published 

 in Volume II, which are quite the most admirable figures of the 

 sort that have ever been published. The plates, although ad- 

 mirably reproduced, do not do full justice to the beauty of the 

 original drawings. 



In 1916 he was made Vice-President of the Entomological 

 Society of Washington. He was a fellow of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science and of the Entomological 

 Society of America. He was also a member of the Biological 

 Society of Washington. He was a candidate at the George 

 Washington University for a doctor's degree, but his illness and 

 death intervened before it was granted. His death was due to 



