MOSQUITO FISH—JORDAN 367 
that it might fall prey to ducks, coots (mud hens), king-fishers, 
and other like birds of prey. To what extent these creatures would 
do mischief I can not say. 
The present writer first brought the value of Gambusia to public 
notice in the Scientific American in May, 1926. Parts of that article 
are repeated here. Since then he has had an extended correspondence 
with persons interested, in various parts of the world—London, 
Paris, Berlin, Florence, Rome, Buenos Aires, Salonika, Singapore, 
Calcutta, and especially with the American Red Cross people, who 
hope to redeem those parts of Russia most specially cursed. For 
nowhere in southern Europe, northern Africa, nor western Asia is 
there any species of fish devoted to the destruction of mosquitoes and 
their eggs and larve. About the Mediterranean and the Black Sea 
its help is most particularly needed. 
I may quote from a personal letter of Dr. L. W. Hackett, of the 
International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, director 
of “ La Stazione Sperimentale, per la Lotta Antimalarica ” at Rome. 
He writes me of the work in Italy: 
Gambusia was first introduced into Spain by Dr. Massimo Sella,’ director of 
the antimalaria work, by the help of the American Red Cross. Doctor Grassi, 
the famous Italian malariologist, had Gambusia brought to Italy from Spain. 
They were imported first to the drainage canals at Ostia and Fiumicino at the 
mouth of the Tiber and in the four succeeding summers have multiplied pro- 
digiously. This fish seems to have left behind its natural enemies and to be more 
at home in Italian and Spanish waters than it ever was in America. For one 
thing, the weaker males, which in America are always found in disproportion- 
ately small numbers, here seem to survive and in many places equal the females 
in number. 
The International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation has recently 
established in cooperation with the Italian Government an experimental anti- 
malaria station in Rome with field laboratories in different parts of Italy. 
This station has made a wide distribution of Gambusia in all parts of Italy, 
in Jugoslavia and in Dalmatia as well. It would therefore be a very simple 
matter for Mr. (John Henry) House to obtain these fish in Salonika. 
These fish, owing to the enormous numbers which develop in ponds and 
streams are more effective against mosquito larve than they were in America. 
They will penetrate many kinds of horizontal aquatic vegetation, and will do 
away with from 80 to 90 per cent of Anopheles larve. There are many types 
of water, however, both permanent and intermittent, to which they can not 
adapt themselves and our judgment is that although they are a great help in 
antimosquito work, conditions are rarely such as to make it unnecessary to 
do any other kind of antimosquito work. However, as their introduction is 
inexpensive and their maintenance practically nil, they represent a measure 
of which practicaily any community can avail itself in mild climates. 
A hopeful pond was established at Tirana, the capital of Albania, 
and stocked with fishes from Rome. It was washed away by a 
“ cloud burst ” and the water all leaked out through its gravel bottom. 
* Doctor Sella, in a recent valuable report, records the establishment of 59 pounds in 
Italy, Yugoslavia, Macedonia. Albania, and Palestine. 
