COLOR PREFERENCES 217 



" Our experiments were made in a large gauze tent which had been erected 

 within a disused photographic establishment, the one end of the tent ending 

 against large windows into which the sunlight poured on bright days. Large 

 stone basins were placed on the floor for the Anopheles to breed in, the stock 

 being renewed from time to time. 



" It was noticed at the beginning that when one entered the tent in dark grey 

 clothes, that the imagos frequently flew up and settled on the dark cloth, but that 

 they never did this when the person entering the tent was clothed in white 

 flannels. To test the influence of colour, a number of pasteboard boxes were 

 taken which measured 20 by 16 cm, and had a depth of 10 cm. The boxes were 

 lined with cloth, having a slightly roughened surface, to which the insects could 

 comfortably cling. All of the fabrics had a dull — not shiny — surface, and each 

 box was lined with a cloth of different colour. The boxes were placed in rows 

 upon the floor and upon each other in tiers, the order being changed each day 

 after the observations had been made. The interior of the boxes was moderately 

 illuminated by light reflected from the surface of the white tent. On 17 days 

 during a month beginning with the middle of June, we counted the number of 

 flies which had accumulated in the boxes. Counts were actually made on 17 

 sunny and cloudy days, and with the following result : 



Number of A. maculipennis 

 Colour of Box counted in each box 



during- 17 days. 



Navy blue 108 



Dark red 90 



Brown (Reddish) 81 



Scarlet 59 



Black 49 



Slate grey 31 



Dark green (olive) 24 



Violet 18 



Leaf green 17 



Blue 14 



Pearl grey 9 



Pale green 4 



Light blue (forget-me-not) 3 



Ochre 2 



White 2 



Orange 1 



Yellow 



512 



" We see from the above table that dark blue was most attractive, the other 

 colours being less and less attractive in the order of numbers given. A marked 

 fall in the number of insects resting in the boxes begins with the ' pearl grey ' 

 box. Pale green, light blue, ochre, orange, and yellow, especially the last two 

 colours seemed to repel the insects. The karki-coloured uniform at present in 

 vogue should offer advantages besides invisibility to human foes ! These obser- 

 vations on colour were described by one of us in a short note which appeared in 

 the British Medical Journal (14 Sept., 1901). 



" Mr. J. Cropper, of Mount Ballan, Chepstow, who read the above note wrote 

 to us (17 Sept., 1901) : ' Seeing your article on Colour Selection by Anopheles 

 reminds me that I found the dark navy-blue lining of my tent this summer (in 

 Palestine) extremely attractive to mosquitoes, almost entirely Anopheles — and 

 when the sun got hot I always noticed an increase in their numbers, presumably 

 as they came from the herbage and trees near by. No one ever slept in the tent, 

 and I never found Anopheles bite in the day time.' 



