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[[preprinted & centered]] SCIENCE MUSEUM
THE INSTITUTE OF JAMAICA
KINGSTON, JAMAICA, B.W.I. [[/preprinted & centered]]

AIR MAIL

November 11, 1955.

Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt,
Head Curator,
Department of Zoology,
U. S. National Museum
Washington 25, D.C.
U. S. A.

Dear Dr. Schmitt,

Please forgive me for not previously acknowledging your airletter of September 15. I was very pleased to hear from you and wish I could be more helpful at the present time. I have never heard of any specially constructed firefly lamps in Jamaica and I can find no reference to them in our West India Reference Library. My guess is that the insects used in such "lamps" were the elaterid [[underline]] Pyrophorus plagiophthalmus [[/underline]] which is widely distributed, certainly in the Greater Antilles. One often sees people today (usually children) put these insects in jam jars to carry about, but not as a lamp in any very serious way.

Unfortunately, our library does not file the Bulletins of the U.S. National Museum under the Bulletin numbers although we have a great many of them, and I would be pleased to look up the references you mentioned if you could let me have the titles of the articles.

With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
[[signature]] C. Bernard Lewis [[/signature]]
C. Bernard Lewis,
Director and Curator.

CBL/er