HABITS OF STEGOMYIA 151 



or river. It has already, it is stated, reached an alti- 

 tude of 4,200 feet in Mexico (yellow fever working 

 party Report), and, as shown by the great outbreak of 

 yellow fever in the interior of Guatemala and Spanish 

 Honduras in 1905, it has well established itself along 

 the Puerto Barrios and Puerto Cortez railroads. 



It is essentially a domestic mosquito, and, there- 

 fore, a mosquito of cities. Whilst the malaria-bearing 

 Anophelines are usually confined to the outskirts of 

 large cities, having been gradually driven away from 

 tlie centre of the towns owing to the building up of 

 inhabited blocks, and to drainage, the stegomyia, on 

 the contrary, seeks the central and more crowded 

 parts of the city — the places, in fact, where it finds 

 the necessary and innumerable water receptacles in 

 the closest proximity to the dwelling houses. The 

 knowledge of this characteristic is of the utmost 

 importance in all epidemics. It is, indeed, a cistern- 

 breeding mosquito, and is often known on this account 

 as the " cistern mosquito." It is found in abundance, 

 therefore, in those places where rain-water is collected 

 and stored for domestic purposes ; no wonder, then, 

 that it was present in New Orleans, with its sixty to 

 seventy thousand water-vats. 



The mosquito is readily recognised by the white 

 bands upon the legs and abdomen, the lyre-shaped 

 pattern in white on the back of the thorax. It is 

 due to the presence of these bands and spots that 

 this black-and-white mosquito is often called the "Tiger 

 Mosquito." The females only suck blood, and they 

 appear to attack man both during the day and at 



