# Leland Ossian Howard

Leland Ossian Howard (June 11, 1857 – May 1, 1950) was an American entomologist and chief from 1894 to 1927 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Entomology.

## Quotes

* In 1895 the writer became interested in the study of the common house fly (Musca domestica). Breeding-cage experiments with some detail later on in this paper early convinced him that horse manure is the favorite food of this species. Even in the presence of kitchen garbage, cow dung, and human excrement, flies in confinement oviposited exclusively on horse manure. In the absence of the latter substance but in the presence of the others, he noted egg-laying on decaying fruit and on cow dung but the resultant larvæ failed to develop. He considered himself warranted in the statement that probably 95 percent of the flies found in cities come from the piles of horse manure everywhere so prevalent, especially in the vicinity of stables.
** A Contribution to the Study of the Insect Fauna of Human Excrement: (With Especial Reference to the Spread of Typhoid Fever by Flies). volume II. December 28, 1900. 541–604. (quote from p. 541)
* As is well known, the mosquito-pest is by no means confined to the tropics or even to temperate regions. The stories which the returning gold-hunters from Dawson City and other Alaskan localities tell of the abundance and ferocity of Alaskan mosquitoes, are hardly to be matched by any mosquito story which I have heard, historical or otherwise. Many of my friends in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and the United States Geological Survey who have formed members of summer parties for survey work in Alaska, have come back to this country with a much stronger idea of the importance of the practical study of insects than they had when they started, their acquaintance with mosquitoes having become so intimate and their knowledge of their ferocity having reached such a pitch that the first question which they ask on returning is: "If I have to go up there next summer, what under the sun can I do to keep from being bled to death by mosquitoes?" They state that they never experienced or even imagined anything in the mosquito line quite equal to those found in Alaska. Mr. W. C. Henderson, of Philadelphia, says, concerning Alaskan mosquitoes, "They existed in countless millions, driving us to the verge of suicide or insanity."
** Mosquitoes: How They Live; How They Carry Disease; How They Are Classified; How They May Be Destroyed. New York: McClure, Phillips & Company. 1901. p. 42.
* For many centuries humanity has endured the annoyance of mosquitoes without making any intelligent effort to prevent it except in the use of smudges, preparations applied to the skin, and in removal from localities of abundance. And it is only within comparatively recent years that widespread community work against mosquitoes has been undertaken, this having resulted almost directly from the discoveries concerning the carriage of disease by these insects. As obvious a procedure as it might seem to be, the abolition of mosquito-breeding places is a comparatively new idea. The treatment of breeding places with oil to destroy the larval forms is, however, by no means recent. As early as 1812 the writer of a work published in London entitled "Omniana or Horæ Otiosiores" suggested that by pouring oil upon water the number of mosquitoes may be diminished. It is stated that in the middle of the nineteenth century kerosene was used in France in this way, while in the French quarter in New Orleans oil was placed in water tanks before the civil war, the idea having possibly come France to New Orleans or vice versa.
** Preventive and Remedial Work Against Mosquitoes. Bulletin No. 88, U.S. Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. Government Printing Office. June 20, 1910. p. 7.
* F. W. Putnam was a resident of Salem, and was greatly interested in the so-called Essex Institute of that city. The Institute had founded a museum that contained large collections in natural history brought home through the years by the famous Salem ships. Putnam induced his fellow students, Hyatt, Packard, Verrill, and Morse to work at these collections, Morse on the shells, Packard on the articulates, Hyatt on the sponges and on geology, and Putnam on the vertebrates and ethnology. Whether they went to Salem to live a year or so earlier or later, makes little difference, but, when George Peabody gave the Institute $140,000 and the well known Peabody Museum was founded in 1867, all of them but Verrill (who had gone to Yale), were placed in definite charge of these subjects in the Museum.
** (1935). "Edward Sylvester Morse 1838–1925". Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences XVII: 6.

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Leland Ossian Howard on Wikipedia