WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 473 



that the monograph gained greatly by the delay and that it has been 

 of much use. Activity in mosquito work has been so great, however, 

 that it has become necessary to revise and extend the taxonomic por- 

 tions, which fortunately has been done by Doctor Dyar and was pub- 

 lished by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in a single large 

 volume in May, 1928. 



In 1902, while in England, I spent a week-end with Professor 

 Theobald at his charming home at Wye (Kent). We had an ex- 

 tremely interesting time talking about mosquitoes and other things. 

 We discussed, for example, the rather interesting question of au- 

 thority in nomenclature. As it happens, he had sent me in correspon- 

 dence his new generic name Stegomyia for the old Cidex fasciatiis — 

 the yellow fever mosquito — and I had published it in my 1901 book, 

 with excellent illustrations. His own volume did not appear until 

 after mine, and he quite strenuously argued that the genus would be 

 accredited to me and not to him. I am glad that it was not, since it 

 is rather an awkward word, even if it has become implanted into 

 (especially) medical literature. 



This reminds me that in June, 191 2, when I entered the big hall of 

 Burlington House in London, on the occasion of the celebration of 

 the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society the first 

 person I saw was Ross. I advanced exuberantly, but he put his hands 

 behind him and said, " I will not shake hands with you until you tell 

 me that you chaps in Washington are not going to change the name 

 of the yellow fever mosquito again." I regretfully confessed that 

 Dyar and Knab had recently decided that the name should be changed 

 from calopns Meigen to aegypti Linnaeus ; whereupon he called out 

 to Lt. Col. Alcock and Lt. Col. Skinner, " Here, boys, lock the doors 

 and send for a bobby ; we have got this Washington man here and we 

 will keep him until he promises that that name will not be changed." 



The publication of the bulletin on household insects (Bulletin 

 No. 4, 1896) interested us once more in the subject of the house 

 fly. I was not surprised to find that the full life history of this com- 

 monest of all insects had not been studied with much care. The 

 information from Europe was scanty, and in this country Dr. A. S. 

 Packard had described the rearing of one generation in 1873 at Salem, 

 Massachusetts. 



When it came to the preparation of the manuscript for Bulletin 4 

 on household insects, it was obvious that the house fly should receive 

 careful treatment, and therefore in 1895 rearing experiments were 

 begun. It was unexpectedly found that it was rather a difficult insect 

 to rear in confinement, and in fact we were unable to get it to lay its 

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