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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANKOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. jS 



the Museum collection of tropical muscoid flies, while at the same 

 time collecting such other insects as could be obtained. He left 

 Washington on the last day of March for New Orleans, where he 

 took the United Fruit Company's steamship for Puerto Barrios, 

 arriving there April 7. and continuing by train to Guatemala City 

 the same day. 



He made his headquarters in that city for about a month, taking 

 trips to the Mexican border at Ayutla. to the Pacific Coast at San 

 Jose, to Antigua, to the interior lowland at Quirigua, and some nearer 

 places. In the immediate vicinity at Guatemala City the collecting 

 was poor in April, as it was in the latter part of the dry season. 



Fig. 104. — Alilitar} headquarters on plaza in Col)an, Guatemala. 



Numerous courtesies were extended to Dr. Aldrich by the Agri- 

 cultural Department of Guatemala, especially by the Director-Gen- 

 eral, Mr. J. G. Salas. The Department was at the time very much 

 concerned with an outbreak of the migratory locust and had reared 

 some parasites, which Dr. Aldrich was able to identify. This locust 

 is a great pest of agriculture from Southern Mexico to Argentina, 

 and there was much interest in its parasites. These, it happens, 

 belong to a group of flies which Dr. Aldrich has studied extensively. 



About May first the Minister of Agriculture proposed that Dr. 

 Aldrich give up his plans for collecting in the western part of the 

 country and join a government party in a trip to Coban for the 

 purpose of making investigations on the locusts and their parasites 

 and meeting a similar investigating party coming over from Mexico. 

 As it seemed possible that some important information regarding 



