NAVAL MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
NATIONAL NAVAL MEDICAL CENTER 
BETHESDA 14 MARYLAND 
m/3/ M. 
v 
22 October 1951 
t i * 
Dr. Alexander Wetmore 
Smithsonian Institution , 
Washington 25, D. C. 
Dear Doctor Wetmore: 
When I was in Panama last June Doctor Trapido took me to the place where 
you had only recently been collecting ornithological specimens. It was 
only a visit but I was there long enough to see how pleasant a place it 
would be for collecting. I had only a month in Panama and spent all of 
it collecting lizards and looking for blood parasites. We found a Plas ¬ 
modium in Sceloporus formosus in Chiriqui Province and I was able to 
bring some of the infected lizards back alive. During my stay there my 
desire to know more about the blood parasites of the birds was greatly 
sharpened. 
For a long time I have been attempting to interest field collectors in 
museums in cooperating with me in obtaining blood smears from the birds 
they collect. I have had very little success. However, it still seems 
a much better way of going about learning more of the avian blood para¬ 
sites than to have parasitologists doing the collecting. The latter 
usually have no experience at preparing bird skins whereas it is an easy 
matter for ornithologists to prepare blood smears at the time the bird 
is killed. I am writing to you in the hope of enlisting your help in 
obtaining blood smears on your next field collecting expedition. We 
could furnish number^lides in boxes and any other necessary materials. 
The state of our knowledge of avian malarial parasites is such now that 
any additions to it are likely to prove very rewarding in helping us to 
piece together apparently isolated facts. 
Sincerely yours, 
j 
Division of Parasitology 
