LARVAL HABITATS 219 



water-logged boats, and in stone troughs, and in fact found them fourteen times 

 altogether with Culex and ten times with fish. Grassi and Fiealbi state that 

 Anopheles maculipcnnis is most frequently found in flat land in Italy, the larvae 

 requiring clear water rich in vegetable food. Austen found in Freetown that 

 Anopheles larvae occurred in stagnant puddles varying from a foot to several feet 

 at the sides of the streets, but many were met in the still water in little bays at 

 the side of slowly running shallow ditches. Whether the water was clear or 

 muddy seemed to make no difference, but green algse were nearly always present, 

 and in some puddles tadpoles were numerous. Veazie, of New Orleans, finds 

 Anopheles larva in the ponds out in the suburbs and in the swamps back of the 

 city. Colonel Gorgas, in the Havana campaign, found that the most ef&cient 

 work was done by his malaria brigade along the small streams, the irrigated 

 gardens and similar places in the suburbs. Anopheles bred principally in the 

 pools and puddles well protected with grass, and were abundantly found in the 

 small holes made by the footsteps of cattle and horses, which observation has 

 been frequently repeated elsewhere. F. C. Pratt, of the Bureau of Entomology, 

 has found them breeding in temporary standing water between rows of com in 

 lowlands in North Carolina. 



As a matter of fact Anopheles larva3 may breed in almost any standing water. 

 Smith, in answer to his own question "where does Anopheles breed?" says 

 " Everywhere." He has found the larvae in trap-pails in his back yard, and 

 states that he has found no pool so insignificant and no stream so rapid but that 

 somewhere in it Anopheles can breed. He has found the larvge of A. quadri- 

 maculatus on the salt marsh, and he has taken a larva of A. punctipennis in a 

 stream that was so foul that it resembled an open sewer. He says : 



" Small creeks through meadow land, the ditches and gutters or drains along 

 railroad and other embankments, and the shallow overgrown edges of ponds or 

 swamp areas are favorite breeding places. Pools containing grassy or other 

 vegetation are nearly always infested, and ponds with lily pads, dock, saggittaria 

 and other plants of a similar character, are danger points. The larvae need only 

 a mere film of water, and this being found over a leaf or at a grassy edge, protects 

 them from the usual natural enemies. ... no other mosquito has as wide a 

 range of breeding places as have the species of Anopheles." 



James and Liston, in their admirable study of Anopheles in India, state also 



that it is almost impossible to find a collection of water in which Anopheles may 



not occasionally be found. Unless every collection of water is systematically 



searched, important breeding-places may be overlooked. It is the opinion of 



these writers that each species has a particular kind of breeding-ground that it 



prefers above any other, a fact which has been noted by other observers in other 



parts of the world. Cododiazesis harheri, for example, in the United States, and 



Anopheles eiseni in Central America, breed in collections of water in tree-holes, 



frequently far away from human habitations. James and Liston point out that 



at Jalpaiguri two species of Anopheles were common ; A. rossi bred in the small 



shallow, muddy puddles and pools near and among the native huts; A. nigerri- 



mus bred at some distance from the village in the deep natural pools of a swampy 



marsh. Neither of these larvae was found in the breeding-places of the other. 



