2 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



When I began my investigation under the law above citecl 

 very little was known of the mosquitoes inhabiting the State, and 

 that little was not to their credit. There was no such thing as a 

 systematic collection and, except for the list in my Catalogue of 

 the Insects of New Jersey, there was no recorded knowledge as 

 to the number of species to be dealt with. No one was even cer- 

 tain of the names of the species collected, and everything was in 

 chaotic state. 



Dr. L. O. Howard had just published his little book on mos- 

 quitoes and that was the only tangible starting point, presenting 

 as it did, in popular form, the status of our knowledge at that 

 time, not only as to classification, but also as to life history and 

 the known methods of control. It is interesting to compare that 

 book published in 1901 with our present knowledge, and there 

 is no better proof of its value and timeliness than the fact that 

 all over the country it practically started the work which revolu- 

 tionized our knowledge of mosquitoes in general. Few of our 

 American species had been bred up to that time; the differences 

 between the larvae were but vaguely known and, in a general 

 way, all species were supposed to have about the same habits and 

 methods of development. 



I felt convinced, from the preliminary studies that I had made, 

 that some at least of our beliefs were erroneous, and \yhen, at 

 last, I vvas in position to carry on the investigation, I planned, 

 firsi, to find what species were troublesome; second, to work out 

 the life cycle of at least the pestiferous forms, and, third, to deter- 

 mine what practical methods could be adopted on a scale suffi- 

 cient to deal with a State problem. I realized that until I had all 

 the facts involved in the first and second points thoroughly estab- 

 lished, I could not hope to cover the third satisfactorily. 



This is perhaps the best place to acknowledge the assistance 

 received from Dr. Howard and his aide, Mr. D. W. Coquillett. 

 Dr. Howard was good enough to reply to all my questions con- 

 cerning the progress of his work and to give what information 

 I asked from time to time ; while Mr. Coquillett determined for 

 me all the species sent to him as the investigation progressed. 

 Mr. Coquillett has the widest knowledge of American mosquitoes 

 and his help has been invaluable. On the other hand. New Jersey 

 supplied the material in whole or in part for no less than seven 

 species described by him as new, so there has been at least some 

 return for favors received. 



The whole work had not progressed very far before two points 

 came out very clearly — there were more kinds of mosquitoes than 

 we had believed, and there were only a few that could be ac- 

 counted as really troublesome. In fact, every day's field work 



