112 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



sible for the prevalence of malaria in the place and not the very much more 

 abundant species A. rossi. 1 



Now we find that upon a short visit of investigation Dr. Lutz 

 found a single species of Anopheles in the locality and at once con- 

 cluded that this was responsible for the malarial outbreak. "Ich 

 war sofort iiberzeugt, die gesuchte jVIiickenart gefunden zuhaben 

 obgleich damals liber die Charaktere der Malariaiibertrager noch 

 nichts bekannt war. Als bald darauf erkannt wurde, das dieselben 

 unter den Anopheles-ATten zu suchen seien, sah ich mit Befried- 

 igung, das die neue Artein Anopheles war." He assumed that no 

 other species of Anopheles could be present in the locality because it 

 appeared to him that there were no suitable breeding-places other 

 than the bromeliads. In fact I have found three species of Ano- 

 pheles breeding in small pools in the bed of a mountain stream, 

 where the topographic conditions must correspond very closely 

 with those outlined by Dr. Lutz, and two of these species (A . argyri- 

 tarsis and A. eiseni) occur also in southern Brazil. I have repeated 

 these observations on two visits to Cordoba, Mexico (June, 1905 

 and December, 1907, to April 1908), and found the larvae on these 

 occasions in a canyon which is virtually scoured out by the moun- 

 tain torrent after every heavy rain. Similar observations are at 

 hand from the rapid streams in Panama. Furthermore it may be 

 pointed out that during a five months stay at Cordoba I did not 

 capture a single adult Anopheles, and had I not collected the larvae 

 I should have been led to conclude that no Anopheles occurred in 

 that locality. It may therefore be pardonable if I express my in- 

 credulity that no other than the bromelicolous Anopheles were 

 present in the locality described by Dr. Lutz. Aside from this 

 possible or even probable presence of other Anopheles, which ad- 

 mittedly might be in such small numbers as to be a negligible factor, 

 there may be still other sources of error. The question naturally 

 arises : How completely and for how long a period were the work- 

 men confined to the forest habitat? Did they not, singly or in 

 small parties, take holidays outside that zone or make nocturnal 

 visits to taverns and pleasure resorts beyond its confines? From 

 what we know of the habits of Homo in general we have a right to 

 suspect this! In short, the claim that a wholly "wild" species of 

 Anopheles should become an efficient host of a human malarial 

 parasite seems to me so improbable that no evidence other than the 

 demonstration of the parasites in the salivary glands of the mos- 

 quito will induce me to accept it. 



1 A Monograph of the Anopheles Mosquitoes of India (first edit.), p. 

 53-54, 1904. 



2 Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. etc., 1 Abt., Originate, vol. 33, p. 283, 1903. 



