MOSQUITO FAUNA OF PANAMA — BUSCK 55 



truly intelligent work against this scourge of the tropics. When the 

 Panama Canal is finished; most of the localities in which the present 

 work is going on will disappear, submerged under the lakes of the 

 canal. Even then these problems will not cease to exist, but will, if 

 possible, be of added importance on account of the traffic through 

 the canal and the possibility of carrying infectious diseases between 

 two hemispheres. 



It mav be of value for the rediscovery of the many new species 

 of mosquitoes obtained during the trip and for the continued study 

 of these insects by the Sanitary Department that some general de- 

 scription of the localities in which the collections were made should 

 be given as well as some of the methods employed in obtaining and 

 rearing the mosquitoes. 



The neighborhood of Tabernilla, in which most of the work was 

 done, is low : from the Panania Railroad line the ground slopes grad- 

 ually down toward the Chagres River. In the intervening country 

 is the bed of the old French sea-level canal, which even in the dry 

 season is covered by a series of shallow lakes connected by low 

 meadows. Between this and the river the land is covered with tall 

 bamboo, sparsely interspersed by large hardwood trees ; the crowns of 

 these latter are thickly covered with parasitic plants, such as Tilland- 

 sia and Agave, which constitute in themselves a thickly populated 

 world for several species of mosquitoes. 



A few neglected trails wind their way through the heavy under- 

 brush to native villages on the other side of the river, where patches 

 of land are burned off and cleared for pastures or for sugar-cane and 

 banana fields. When passing through this region one finds, as everv- 

 where on the lowland of the Zone, the old narrow-gauge railroad 

 tracks left from the French works and quantities of old French 

 machinery completely overgrown by heavy underbi"ush. 



During the rainy season the Chagres River rises, and this entire 

 area is covered with water and is only accessible bv wading knee 

 deep. 



Here in the bamboo woods swarms of mosquitoes seek one out, 

 and many species can be secured as adults, when they come to bite ; 

 but their larvae are rarely accessible in nature, occurring as they do 

 in broken bamboo joints filled with rain-water or in tree-holes, some- 

 times high up in the l)ranches or difficult to reach through the tangle 

 of underbrush and fallen bamboos. A good way to secure these 

 larvae is to clear spaces in the woods with a machete, fell a couple 

 of bamboo trunks, and cut them up in short joints, which are then 

 placed upright in the ground and filled with water. These bamboo 



