BREEDING HABITS 285 



breeding in the lye barrels where ashes were mixed with water for the purpose 

 of making lye. He also noticed them the same season in the holy-water fonts in 

 churches. In New Orleans they were also noticed in the holy-water fonts, but 

 here, after this had been pointed out, wet sponges were substituted for standing 

 water. Moreover, in New Orleans it is the custom to keep wine cool by placing 

 it in the pools of water accumulating under the water tanks, and in these pools 

 the yellow-fever mosquito was found to breed extensively. In some houses in the 

 low quarter of the city water was found to accumulate under the houses, and 

 here also the yellow-fever mosquito bred. At San Antonio, Texas, in 1903, 

 Surgeon Mason, of the U. S. Army, informed one of the writers (Howard) that 

 he had found calopus breeding not only in such places as have just been men- 

 tioned, but in the water pans in the chicken yards and in the water receptacles 

 of an old grindstone in a yard. 



In 1905 Messrs. Busck and Knab, in their respective journeys to the West 

 Indies and to Central America, made especial notes on the breeding-places of 

 this species. Both of these observers stated that calopus nearly always breeds in 

 clear water and very seldom in foul water. They always found it in artificial 

 receptacles except a few times in tree-holes near houses and in one case where 

 Mr. Knab, at Cordoba, Mexico, found a larva of this species in a street gutter. 

 This larva probably came there by the emptying of some vessel. Goeldi was of 

 the opinion that the larva of calopus could only develop in clear water. Busck 

 has on two occasions found the larvae in very foul water and the French com- 

 mission noted that it thrives in filthy water. However, the breeding in clear 

 water is the rule. Mr. Knab found that the house of the American Consul at 

 San Salvador was especially infested by this species. The larvae throve abun- 

 dantly in the garden, in the small water-filled stone gutters which served to 

 protect the plants from the leaf -cutting ants. In a church in Grenada Mr. Busck 

 found calopus breeding abundantly in the holy-water font, and also in several 

 other churches in different West Indian islands. This fact was mentioned in 

 a paper presented by one of the writers (Howard) before the International Con- 

 gress of Sanitarians of the American Eepublics held in Washington in the 

 autumn of 1905, and was widely exploited by the newspapers. The matter was 

 taken up by an ingenious resident of Boston who forthwith invented a holy- 

 water font in which it is impossible for the yellow-fever mosquito to breed, the 

 water being allowed to issue from the font drop by drop from a faucet. Adult 

 mosquitoes were found to be abundant in churches where the larvae were breed- 

 ing in fonts, and under these conditions such churches must always be sources 

 of great danger. In Trinidad Busck found that beer bottles were used as a 

 border ornament for the flower beds ; the necks of the bottles were stuck into the 

 ground and in their slightly convex bottoms (turned upward) water had ac- 

 cumulated and calopus were breeding. In the broken bottles forming the cheval- 

 de-frise on the stone wall around the jail, he found that water had accumulated 

 and the yellow-fever mosquito was breeding. Knab, at Acapulco, found these 

 mosquitoes especially abundant in his hotel. In the patio there were beautiful 

 flowers protected from ants by water in shallow trenches ; in this water calopus 



