4/2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



such an enormous amount of work in so brief a time. Three vol- 

 umes were pubHshed in 1901, one in 1903, one in 1907, and one in 

 1910. 



Even earHer than the pubhcation of Theobald's first volume, there 

 was issued in London privately a volume of 374 pages by Maj. 

 George M. Giles entitled "A Handbook of the Gnats or Mosquitoes " 

 which had been brought together with much care but at the same time 

 with much expedition to fill the need which was at once obvious. 

 Major Giles made an extensive study of the literature and brought 

 together in English descriptions of all of the mosquitoes which had 

 been described down to that time. Later (in 1902) a second edition, 

 rewritten and much enlarged, was published. 



Realizing that neither Theobald's work nor that of Giles had prob- 

 ably been based upon competent material from North and Central 

 America and the West Indies, I applied in 1902 to the recently 

 founded Carnegie Institution of Washington for a grant which should 

 enable the preparation of a monograph to include all possible informa- 

 tion concerning all the mosquitoes of the geographical regions just 

 nientioned. The grant requested was made by the trustees of the 

 Institution in January, 1903, and organization work was begun at 

 once. It was at first expected that the monograph could be completed 

 in three years, and the grants made by the Institution covered that 

 period. At the expiration of the third year, however, it was found 

 that the material was by no means complete. Too much reliance had 

 been placed upon promises of volunteer observers, and important 

 regions were for this reason not properly covered. The writer had 

 the good fortune to have Dr. H. G. Dyar and Mr. Knab associate 

 themselves with him in this work ; and at the expiration of the three 

 years we were not content to publish the material accumulated, since 

 it was our earnest desire to make the work as complete as possible 

 and as valuable as possible to biologists and to sanitarians. The inves- 

 tigations were therefore continued during 1906, 1907 and 1908, partly 

 by the help of funds appropriated to the United States Department 

 of Agriculture by Congress for the investigation of insects affecting 

 the health of man and animals, partly by the assistance of the Isthmian 

 Canal Commission, partly by the help of volunteer observers in the 

 West Indies and Central America, and partly at the expense of two 

 of the authors (Doctor Dyar and Mr. Knab). Perhaps it was for the 

 liest that the first two volumes were not published until 191 2, the 

 third in 1915 and the fourth in 1917, but it seems rather sad to con- 

 trast this delay with the promptness with which Mr. Theobald's and 

 Major Giles' works were put out. There can be no doubt, however, 



