52 MORE MINOR HORRORS 



the windward of a native village. They are also 

 carried about by trains, motors, and steamers. 

 They do not indulge in any such voluntary 

 migratory flights as the locusts, although 

 some such flights have been from time to time 

 recorded, but these ' swarms ' are probably due 

 to a high wind catching a large number of 

 mosquitos temporarily associated. 



In a joint paper which Professor Nuttall 

 and I wrote some years ago, we drew attention 

 to a case in which mosquitos came aboard a 

 ship some ten miles from land, and to another 

 in which a Spanish barque from Rio was de- 

 tained in the South Atlantic quarantine station 

 of the United States. The vessel was so much 

 infested with mosquitos that it was rendered 

 nearly uninhabitable, and the United States 

 quarantine officer reported that when the 

 forecastle was opened after fumigation ' the 

 mosquitos could be scooped up by hand.' 

 The master of the barque was positive that 

 there had been no mosquitos on board until 

 the twenty-second day out. Howard quotes 

 a letter from a General living in Texas in 

 which he states he has ' twice seen flights of 

 Culicidae,'' but as the species and the genus 

 are not given, much of the interest of the 

 statement evaporates. Generals living in 

 Texas are not invariably remarkable for meti- 

 culous accuracy in recondite scientific matters. 



