The identification of species 



The legs should be examined in order, and a careful description 

 of the markings on each leg, commencing with those on the femur 

 and ending with those of the fifth tarsal segment, made. It will be 

 seen that in many species complete bands of white scales encircle 

 the legs near the joints, and the position and characters of these 

 bands should be noted. In addition, small patches of white scales, 

 not amounting to complete bands, will be found in some species on 

 many of the segments of the legs ("speckling"), and in some 

 species one or more of the terminal tarsal segments of the hind legs 

 will be found to be white-scaled in their whole length. 



The description will be completed by an examination of the 

 male genitalia and of the ungues (special note being taken of the 

 characters of the fore ungues in the male), these structures being 

 separately mounted on slides for this purpose. 



The Identification of adult Anopheles. The identification of 

 most of the Indian species of " anopheles " is not by any means a 

 difficult matter if one sets about the task in a systematic way. 

 We have just indicated the parts of a mosquito which must be 

 examined in detail if it is desired to give a complete description of 

 the insect, but for identification it is not, as a rule, necessary to 

 examine all these structures minutely, and many of the Indian 

 species can be readily identified by an examination with a hand- 

 lens or even with the naked eye. The first requisite for the task 

 of identification is the possession of a synoptic table such as the 

 one given on page 32. This table is founded chiefly upon the 

 markings of the palpi, which afford a satisfactory basis on 

 which the Indian species may be divided, for purposes of identifica- 

 tion, into a number of groups, such as "those with unhanded palpi," 

 *' those with three white bands on the palpi," &c. These groups 

 may be subdivided into smaller ones by the markings on the legs, 

 as, for example, among the " three-banded palpi " group a sub-group 

 containing the species in which one or more of the terminal segments 

 of the hind legs are pure white, another sub-group containing the 

 species in which, though none of the hind tarsal segments are pure 

 white in their whole length, there are distinct white bands at the 

 tarsal joints, and a third sub-group containing the species in which 

 the legs are uniformly coloured without any distinct bands. Each 

 of these sub-groups will be found to contain only a few species, 



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