368 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
A letter from Tirana to the Red Cross Courier, thus describes this 
mischance, unfortunate, though no doubt the fishes will reappear in 
other pools nearer the sea. 
You must know of the Gambusia, some kind of a small fish which feeds on 
green vegetation in ponds garnished with the larvie of the Anopheles mosquito. 
The strange thing about the fish, according to my information, is its intelli- 
gence. It will have its salad, I believe, dressed only with Anopheles larve. 
Some American doctor figured it all out. 
Well, our school (Tirana) pledged itself to breed Gambusia in phalanx, We 
wrote to Rome of our latest enterprise and requested that the Rockefeller 
Foundation there be asked to arrange to transport fishes for a breeding pool 
in Albania. 
We had the fish transported to Tirana and during the next hectic two days 
succeeded in establishing at the farm the first scientifically arranged fish pond 
in Albania. It was especially designed with cunning weirs to form the habitat 
of Gambusia, except that it had no waterproof bottom. 
Water was turned into the new pond, the fish were tenderly removed from 
the patent Rockefeller tin and that night we went to bed with light hearts; 
such are the rewards of happy labor, and were we not in the thick of malaria 
campaign? For my own part I dreamt that I was watching a great Gambusia, 
up on its tail like a kangaroo, chasing some kind of a gaunt Anopheles specter 
all over the salt sea marshes that cirele Durazzo. 
And then I awoke. It was raining one of these miserable Albanian rains 
that drop out of a leaden sky and smother the earth with a blanket of water. 
It continued to rain all day and into the night. The next morning big Kesova 
Bill from the farm appeared at the school, tragedy written all over his erst- 
while cheerful countenance. 
It appears that during the afternoon of the day previous he had inspected 
the pond and the Gambusia. The pond was all right. The fish were all 
right. The next morning early, he had an uneasy feeling that all was not 
well with our part of the malaria campaign. He went to the pond. Water 
and fish were gone; not a trace remained. No fish, no water, only bits of 
shiny white gravel over which they had disported themselves so confidently 
two days before. 
Where did the fish go? Where did the water go? No one knows. We 
only know that they are gone and another mystery awaits solution. In the 
meantime we are praying the indulgence of the Rockefeller people in Rome 
for another consignment. Breeding time comes in the spring so that we have 
lost nothing and gained much in experience. Up to the present time, how- 
ever, we can produce only excuses for our part in the malaria campaign. In 
addition to constructing a fish pond with a water-proof bottom we are also 
constructing a bomb-proof cellar as a matter of precaution should an expert 
drop into our midst with queries concerning the precious Gamobusia. 
From Manila I have an account of a home built on the shores of a 
pond, which the mosquitoes made uninhabitable. When Doctor 
Herre introduced the Gambusia into the water, the situation is 
reported as having become delightful. 
With Gambusia holbrooki or Gambusia patruelis or both, well es- 
tablished and active in the pools and swamps of Southern Europe 
and Western Asia, thousands of lives can be saved, millions of others 
rescued from perennial misery and hundreds of square miles now 
vacant, restored to industry. 
