82 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., ’08 
Perhaps it is not generally known that the Florida coast is lined with 
lighthouses. One of these lighthouses north of Key West is called Som- 
brero. It is a frame of iron on which the dwelling and the lantern stand, 
and is five and one-half miles from the swampy, mangrove lined shore. 
This shore is the breeding place and home of mosquitoes. Probably no 
unprotected human being could survive there for a single night. I know 
wella couple who kept this light for a considerable period. Their experi- 
ence and their testimony on the subject on which I am writing should 
be conclusive, so I questioned them first, as to the distance that mosqui- 
toes can smell human blood. They said that sometimes they were over- 
whelmed with mosquitoes. Secondly, but when? Was it when the wind 
was blowing from the land? Were the insects blown to you? The ans- 
wer was that the inroads of the insects were only when the wind was 
blowing from the lighthouse to the shore. And the keeper said ‘‘not 
when the wind was blowing directly at right angles to the shore.” I 
suggested that there might be a pond a little out of the nearest point of 
the shore. As to that he did not know, for I think he said he had never 
visited the shore. 
It seems evident enough that if the mosquitoes were blown over, only 
those embraced in the narrow zone of the width of the lighthouse would 
ever get to the house, and as the wind never blows very long in one exact 
direction, varying and zigzagging about, no mosquitoes would ever get 
over the five and a half miles of water. Theidea is absurd. Either the 
insects go to the lighthouse on purpose or they don’t go at all. 
Now, if a mosquito can smell warm blood five and a half miles, how 
much farther can he smell it? The common route in pleasant weather 
from the coast to Key West is to sail down along the shore to Boca 
Grande. Then the vessel steers straight for its destination, a distance of 
eighty miles. The route recedes from the land, and the distance becomes 
as great as thirty miles. The course is regulated by sounding and the 
vessel is not allowed to get beyond a certain depth of water. 
I am well acquainted, and have been for years, with two men who have 
sailed across this course many times, regularly making trips from my 
house to Key West. They say that it has happened to them time and 
again, that they would leave Boca Grande in the evening with a westerly 
wind. One of them would lie on his blanket on deck and sleep, while 
the other sailed the boat. There would be no mosquitoes on the boat. 
The sleeper would sleep undisturbed. But after a while mosquitoes would 
appear and disturb the sleeper. When the wind began to come from the 
east, or off shore, the insects would disappear. Those already present, 
of course, would be either killed or quieted with blood after the way of 
the tribe. You will take notice that these observations were made by 
keen observers with their eyes wide open, and repeated over and over 
again. I published these facts twenty years ago. Last summer I heard 
of an entomologist’s visit to our coast and of his investigaday concern- 
ing this subject.—JoHN G. WEBB, Osprey, Fla. 
