Melbourne A. Carriker, Jr. 

 1879-1965 



Melbourne A. Carriker, Jr., was born in Sullivan, Illinois, on February 

 14, 1879. His family moved to Nebraska City, Nebraska, in 1886. He 

 attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for two and one-half years. 

 As a charter member of the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union he presented a 

 paper at the first meeting of the Union in December of 1899 and published 

 his first paper on Mallophaga in 1902. 



In the summer of 1902, he participated in a University of Nebraska 

 expedition to Costa Rica to collect birds for the Carnegie Museum and 

 mammals for the American Museum of Natural History. The Mallophaga 

 collected on that expedition was the subject of his second paper, in 1903. 

 After 1902, Carriker spent most of his life in the American Tropics collecting 

 birds and their Mallophaga. He collected extensively in Costa Rica, 

 Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico. At the time 

 of his death, he was the only expert on Mallophaga recognized as being 

 equally knowledgeable in ornithology. This unique qualification resulted 

 in many scientific papers on both subjects, and provided many excellent 

 discussions on host-parasite relationships. 



M. A. Carriker in 1941 became associated with the United States National 

 Museum of the Smithsonian Institution and this relationship continued 

 until his death, July 27, 1965. Prior to his death, Mr. Carriker had made 

 the necessary arrangements to insure that his extensive collection of Mallo- 

 phaga would be incorporated into the Museum's entomological collection. 

 As a result of this action, the Smithsonian today has the best collection of 

 neotropical Mallophaga in the world. 



K. C. Emerson 

 Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution 



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