468 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



and film durability of illuminating oil (Insect Life, Vol. 5, pp. 12-14). 

 In the earlier volumes of Insect Life, drainage, and the use of 

 kerosene and fish that feed on mosquito larvae were recommended. 



In 1896 the bulletin on insects of the household was published 

 (Bulletin No. 4, new series. Division of Entomology, United States 

 Department of Agriculture) containing chapters on mosquitoes, house 

 flies, and fleas by the writer, and on bedbugs and cockroaches (as 

 well as other domestic insects) by C. L. Marlatt. These chapters 

 included original observations on life histories, and pointed out 

 remedies. . 



After the publication of the Insect Life articles, which received 

 considerable newspaper publicity, there was much correspondence on 

 the subject of mosquitoes, and this correspondence became even 

 larger after Bulletin 4 was issued. The importance of Ross' dis- 

 coveries in India was early appreciated, and by 1899 this work and 

 that of Grassi, Bignami, and Bastianelli in Italy were becoming well 

 known through notices in the medical journals. 



In 1899, G. H. F. Nuttall's large and extremely important paper 

 entitled " On the Role of Insects, Arachnids, and Myriapods as Car- 

 riers in the Spread of Bacterial and Parasitic Diseases of Man and 

 Animals — A Critical and Historical Study " was published as Volume 

 8 of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports. The term " exhaustive 

 research " is overworked, but that is the sort of thing Nuttall did in 

 preparing this paper. Its publication placed those of us who were 

 prepared and anxious to enter the new and immensely important field 

 in possession of a full and careful account not only of all previous 

 work but of all published theories and guesses. It was far from being 

 a mere compilation. Had it been only a compilation, the thorough- 

 ness with which it was done would have made it invaluable. But it 

 was a skilled study by a skilled parasitologist of the highest train- 

 ing in which he digested and contrasted the views of previous authors, 

 critically examined their statements and proofs, and introduced new 

 statements gained from correspondence or from his own observations. 



I had already worked out and published three or four years before 

 the full life history of Culex quinqucfasciatus ( I called it C. pungens) , 

 and I was anxious above most things to study Anopheles. The genus 

 Anopheles was known to the men who studied Diptera. It was de- 

 scribed by Meigen as early as 181 8, and a North American species — 

 Anopheles quadriinaculatus — was described by Thomas Say in 1824. 

 His specimens came from the Northwest Territory. The type of 

 Meigen's genus was A. maculipennis. Say, in his description, states 

 that his new species is closely allied to maculipennis. In 1823 Say had 



