THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



man, with his hair en brosse, German fashion. In fact his 

 atmosphere was distinctly German, and I learned later that he 

 had studied in Germany and had married a German girl. 

 Finding that I could not speak Italian very well, he refused to 

 speak French, and our talk was wholly in German. He also 

 declined to talk with me about mosquitoes and malaria, but 

 insisted on discussing in preference the Aphidids of the genus 

 Phylloxera, a subject in which he was then interested. Although 

 I had assisted Riley and Monell in editing their paper on the 

 insects of this group, I was not especially interested in the subject, 

 and left Grassi in a rather disappointed frame of mind. 



But things changed. The Great War came and Germany was 

 defeated, and when I visited Italy in 1920, Silvestri of Portici, 

 happening to be in Rome when I was there, and happening 

 also to be a friend and admirer of Grassi, brought him down 

 to the Quirinal Hotel to talk. What a change! Grassi, who 

 had in the meantime been made a senator of the Italian 

 kingdom, according to the commendable custom they have in 

 Italy of rewarding men of prominence, was no longer German. 

 He spoke French fluently and with all the suave manners of a 

 Frenchman. Moreover, he had already begun large-scale experi- 

 ments at Fumacino, south of Rome, in the way of malarial 

 control, and he had adopted Celli's manners and methods with 

 the peasants. I must confess that these people had apparently 

 taken him into their hearts and had become convinced that he 

 was their friend and was laboring for their good. 



In 1923 I visited Rome again and went with Grassi down to 

 Fumacino, where he staged a demonstration of his method 

 of fumigating stables. He showed me a shallow lake into which 

 he was thinking of introducing Gambusia, and also a school 

 in which the pupils were being told the necessary facts about 

 malaria. Furthermore, he told me how he had finally been able 



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