THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



here, is a great anarchist," and then to Giuseppe, "This gentle- 

 man is an American." Whereupon I remarked, "Yes, and we 

 have no anarchists in America." To which Giuseppe instandy 

 repHed, "You are mistaken. I have a cousin who hves in 

 Chicago, and he is a much more pronounced anarchist than I 

 am." This staggered me so that I made no reply, and we went 

 on into Rome. The Senator explained on the way that the pre- 

 vious winter Giuseppe had stabbed a man in a fight and had 

 been put in prison. He himself had supported the wife during 

 this time and eventually had had Giuseppe released. The gift 

 of the three eggs was from gratitude, and it was repeated every 

 time the Senator passed the house on his way to Fumacino. 



That was the last time I saw Grassi. He had aged gready 

 since 1910, and had lost the sight of one of his eyes. Before I 

 stop these anecdotes about him, I must mention the fact that 

 on one of mv visits I was the first to inform him of Sambon's 

 theory that Pellagra is carried by Simulium. He characterized 

 this as nonsense and said that he knew many cases in 

 Italy where there was Pellagra and where Simulium did not 

 exist. 



Again, on a later visit, I asked him about the efficacy of bats 

 as devourers of malaria mosquitoes, and of the project that an 

 engineer officer of the Italian Army had advanced (after visiting 

 San Antonio, Texas, during the war, and making the acquaint- 

 ance of Dr. A. R. Campbell) of erecting bat roosts on the Cam- 

 pagna. He replied that MussoHni had asked him for his opinion 

 and that he had replied that it was nonsense. He told him 

 further that he knew many very bad malarial localities in Italy 

 where bats were most numerous. 



Grassi was perhaps one of the best-informed general zoologists 

 in Italy, and did a great deal of admirable work. He died, I 

 think, in 1924. Since his death the Rockefeller Foundation of 



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