136 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi. xi. 



without lids were piled one upon the other, the order being changed each day so as 

 to eliminate any preference due to position or exposure to light. Each box was lined 

 with a cloth having a slightly rough surface — not a shiny or smooth one — to which 

 a mosquito could easily cling. The experiment consisted in counting the number of 

 mosquitoes found in each box on seventeen different days. The results obtained are 

 striking. During the seventeen days on which the count was made, io8 mosquitoes 

 were found in the navy-blue box, 90 in the dark-red box, 81 in a reddish-brown box, 

 59 in the scarlet box, and 49 in the black box. There was at this point a sharp drop 

 to 31 in a slate-gray box and 24 in an olive-green box. Violet, leaf-green, and full- 

 blue boxes had respectively 18, 17 and 14. Pearl-gray had 9, pale green 4, light- 

 blue 2, ochre and white 2 each, orange l, and pale yellow about the color of ^khaki 

 none at all. 



It is thus evident that color has a marked power of attracting this species of 

 mosquito, and that the color which is by far the most attractive is navy-blue. In 

 both services and equally amongst civilians this is a very common, perhaps the com- 

 monest, color for maje attire. The experiments just quoted show that it is at least 

 equally popular with malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Light colors were avoided, espe- 

 cially those with a tinge of yellow. Khaki-colored garments would seem to have 

 other advantages besides that of invisibility on a light soil. 



The results of these observations, conducted on one species and in the midst of 

 an English university town, must not too rashly be thought to hold good of other 

 species living in the open ; but there is a certain amount of evidence that points in 

 the same way. It has been noticed in Indian hospitals that Anopheles hides on black 

 coats and avoids white ones, so that the men who catch them take care to hang up a 

 dark coat or two in the wards when they wish to collect the insects. The French- 

 man Joly noticed in Madagascar that the mosquitoes were attracted by a black soil 

 more than by a red or light one, and that persons wearing black shoes and socks were 

 more often bitten than those who wore white or light coverings for their feet. Whilst 

 a black dog was severely bitten, its companion, who was yellow, almost entirely 

 escaped; thus the " yaller dog" of Western fiction has some advantages in this 

 world. 



Other observations not only point to a modification of dress in malarious districts, 

 but they indicate that much may be done to render dwelling-houses and temporary 

 shelters less habitable to the insects. Mr. J. Cropper has put on record how attrac- 

 tive the dark blue lining of the tent he used in Palestine was to Anoplieles and to 

 other Culicidae, and Austen has noted that if the walls of a room be whitewashed 

 with a dark dado the insects are invariably found on the dado and not on the light 

 surface. This points to doing away with dadoes and using only whitewash. 



The gist of these experiments, which seem to have a very practical bearing on 

 life in malarious districts, was published in the British Medical Journal last Septem- 

 ber. They seem to have attracted little attention in this country ; but the practical 

 minds at the head of the United States army, without waiting for the fuller report, 

 which appears in the current number of \\\& Journal oj Hygiene, have already decided 

 to take action on the lines that the experiments indicate. We learn from the Surgeon- 

 General's Office in Washington that the regulation army shirt of navy blue is to be 

 withdrawn from all malarious districts, and a light one issued in its stead. [English 

 Mechanic, January 24, I902. ) 



