THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



a military guard. He replied that although that was perfectly 

 true, I could use the soldiers to collect insects for me! 



On another occasion I called on Dr. Eduardo Liceaga, the 

 president of the Superior Board of Health in the City of Mexico, 

 at a time when I wished to study the geographical distribution 

 of the Yellow Fever mosquito in Mexico. Dr. Liceaga had been 

 one of the first Mexicans to accept enthusiastically the findings 

 of the Walter Reed Commission concerning the transfer of 

 Yellow Fever by a certain species of mosquito. He told me with 

 much pride (this was in 1904) that he had organized the whole 

 republic in such a way that there was perfectly satisfactory mos- 

 quito inspection going on at all the principal points, and he 

 showed me a detailed list of inspectors on his pay-roll at each 

 place. I went gradually from the City of Mexico (eight thousand 

 feet elevation) down to the seaboard at Vera Cruz, stopping at 

 several points on the way, including Orizaba and Cordoba. At 

 each point I searched for Liceaga's inspectors, and at last in 

 Cordoba I found a lady who told me that she had seen a solitary 

 lazy Indian with a sign on his cap and a quart can of kerosene. 

 Evidently Liceaga's inspectors were drawing their pay from the 

 government, but it is doubtful if they did much work. 



While at Cordoba, by the way, an American lady, Mrs. Mary 

 Knight Wood, a composer of charming songs, gave a little tea 

 party and invited a number of people who understood English. 

 Among them was a young girl of seventeen, a Mexican, who in 

 rather efficient but halting English said to me, "It must be very 

 embarrassing for you to see the monument in our principal 

 plaza." It was a monument erected to heroes who died in the 

 war of 1847 against the United States. I replied that it was a 

 beautiful monument, and that the sentiment was also beautiful, 

 but I asked why I should feel embarrassed. She replied that it 

 was because the Mexicans had won the war. 



[X75] 



