i6 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. X. 



comfortably provided for under eight genera only, Anopheles, 

 Megarhinus, Subethes, Psorophora^ Cnlex, Aedes, Corethra and 

 Mochlonyx.^ 



The latest set up of these was the latter, in 1844, after which 

 no new genus was proposed till Arribalzaga, by the first splitting 

 up of Culex, in 1891, erected J anthinosoma. Ochlerotatus , Uranotae- 

 nia, Taeniorhyuchus and Meter any cha 



The next author to dismember the old genera was Theobald, 

 the pioneer of the school of exclusive culicidologists, who in the 

 first two volumes of his Monograph (1901) erected Toxorhynchites, 

 Mucidiis, Stegomyia, Armigeres^ Panoplites,^ De'.nocerites, Aedeo- 

 myia , Wyeomyia, and Trichoprosopon. In the meantime, Haema- 

 gogus. Will. (189b) was established, and this is apparently a sound 

 genus. 



From about 1901 onwards nearly 200 new "genera' have 

 been proposed, the greater number of them on the most slender 

 and inconstant characters 



It must be admitted that the general tendency of modern 

 writers is to recognise a far greater number than formerly of fami- 

 lies, genera and other related groups in all orders of the animal 

 kingdom, but it is quite open to question whether such a course 

 is either zoologically correct, or even advisable on the grounds of 

 expediency. The number of families for instance in such groups as 

 birds, fishes, beetles, etc. is much greater now than was the case 

 say half a century ago, and this quite apart from strikingly dis- 

 tinct forms since discovered. 



It must also be admitted that the confinement of one's 

 studies to a single group, to the exclusion of all others, more espe- 

 cially a group much restricted both in extent and variety, infallibly 

 narrows one's view of the science as a whole and equally infallibly 

 distorts one's sense of taxonomic proportion;, thus mere racial 

 varieties become species, small groups of a few species with per- 

 haps but a single kindred character are promoted to genera, and 

 any such "genus" varying slightly from a very narrow and well 

 beaten track is elevated immediately to the dignity of a sub- 

 family. 



Specialists who are also competent all-round zoologists or even 

 good general entomologists are rarer year by year, but a general 



seems to have been done till 1880 when Laveran discovered the actual parasite of 

 malaria, after which it M^as 1894 to 1896 before a definite mosquito theory was 

 propounded. (Vide Brit. Med. Jour., Dec. 8th, 1894; Mar. 14th, 21st, 28th, 1896). 

 Ross first found the malaria parasite present in a mosquito's stomach in 1S97, 

 and studied the complete cycle of Plasmoaium in birds in 189S. Grassi proved 

 Anopheles to be the general carrier in 1899, since which time mosquito theories 

 have been advanced by Pfeiffer and Koch, Mendini and others. Bovine malaria 

 was traced to the agency of ticks by Smith and another in 1893. 



The above medical notes were very generously compiled for me by Capt. 

 R, B. Seymour Sewell, I M.S., to whom my thanks are heartily tendered. 



1 Mochlonyx Lw. is synonymous with Corethra as pointed out by me in Rec. 

 lud. Mus. iv 317. 



5 Owing to supp sed preoccupation renamed Desvoidea, Blanch., also pre- 

 occupied, renamed Blanchardiomvia Brun. 



•'' Preoccupied, renamed Maiisonia . .Blanch. 



