BLOOD-SUCKING INSECTS OF FORMOSA. 



Pctvt 1. 



TABANIDAE (with Japanese Species). 

 INTRODUCTION. 



More than 20 years have clasped since the epoch-making 

 discoveries, in the aetiology and mode of dissemination of some of the 

 most formidable diseases threatening" human life and progress in the 

 Tropics, and which have naturally produced widespread interest in the 

 proved or potential living carriers of pathogenic micro-organisms. 

 After which there came a demand for further knowledge concerning 

 the life-history, bionomics, and structure of the suspected disease- 

 carriers, in order to determine the conveyance or non-coveyance of 

 certain disease, by means of insects and their allies, and the methods 

 of their extermination or destruction. 



Entomology has thus become an accessory science, in. some of 

 its branches, to parasitology, a knowledge of the insect and of the 

 conditions governing its existence being an evident necessity for the 

 proper study of the parasites which it harbours. It was soon recognized, 

 too, that insects are not only capable of acting as the intermediate 

 hosts of protozoal parasities inimical to man and animals, but that they 

 also become of medical and veterinary importance. 



In Europe, America, Africa, and India, there arc many students 

 of medical and veterinary Entomology, specialized branches of the 

 study of insects, but with a very few exceptions, there are almost none 

 in Japan. For the last five years, the author has had a great interest 

 in the study of insect from this point of view, he had had, however, 

 but little knowledge of it as he could not spare sufficient time. In 

 the last year or two his special attention has been paid to the number 

 of species of Blood-Sucking-Insects, occurtng in our Islands especially 

 in that of Formosa, their distribution throughout the world, their 



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