'64 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



had been found to be injuring biscuits made for army service. In 

 the other case has been displayed a series of disease-carrying ticks 

 and some of their harmless relatives, twenty-eight specimens in all. 

 Small maps show the distribution of each of the species selected, 

 and any points of interest in the connection of the ticks with the 

 dissemination of the organisms of disease are explained in the labels 

 placed alongside the specimens. 



The series of specimens illustrating the structure and the life- 

 history of house-flies has been increased during the year, and set out 

 in a new, specially designed table case : the series now includes 

 selected specimens of a male and a female of each of the four 

 species of house-fly most frequently met with, models, on an 

 enlarged scale, of the egg, larva, pupa and adult of the common 

 house-fly, Musca domestica, and representations of food contaminated 

 by flies, and refuse of the dust-bin serving as a breeding-place for 

 flies. 



During the summer a new, specially designed table-case was set 

 up in the middle of the Hall to contain specimens illustrating the 

 life-history of the tropical rat-flea, Xenopsylla cheojyis, a flea largely 

 responsible for the spread of plague in hot countries. The series as 

 at present displayed comprises a large model, x 200 linear, of a 

 male, together with a coloured drawing giving the names of the 

 external parts of the body, and models of an egg, a larva, and the 

 head and hind end of an adult female, and models, x 6,000 linear, 

 of plague bacilli and human blood-corpuscles. The model of the 

 male flea was previously shown in a small temporary case in the 

 Hall ; the others are new. Actual specimens are also shown of the 

 adult flea and a larva. 



In July important additions were made in the Hall by intro- 

 ducing two large table-cases that had previously been sent to the 

 International Exhibition at Ghent, in 1913, as an illustration of the 

 work being done by the Museum in making known to the public the 

 important part played by insects in the spread of disease. In one of 

 these cases is a series of 335 pinned s})ecimens of tsetse-flies, tabanid 

 flies and mosquitoes, with labels in English and French, and small 

 maps explaining the- distribution of each of the species shown ; also 

 coloured drawings of ten species of tsetse-flies, and some specimens 

 mounted in alcohol. In the other case are shown two models of one 

 of the disease-spreading mosquitoes. Anopheles macuiipemiis, twenty- 

 eight times (linear) the actual size, and twenty-six models 

 (x 6,000) explaining the complete life-history of the organism of 

 pernicious malaria, a parasite that is transmitted to man by this and 

 other mosquitoes. 



A smaller case of the same collection contains a specimen and a 

 model (x 28) of the tiger-mosquito, Stegomijia fasciata, of interest as 

 being the cause of the spread of yellow-fever. The distribution 

 of this mosquito over the surface of the earth is explained by means 

 of a map in which the regions where the insect is found are marked 

 in red. 



