596 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, X1/1. 
4. The method and place of deposition of ova.—As regards Anopheles 
there is a good deal of doubt. I have never found the eggs except on 
water, and it is in the last degree unlikely that they are ever 
deposited elsewhere. Observations of insects placed under such 
unnatural surroundings as the interior of a test tube are valueless in 
such connection, as the gravid insect must drop her eggs somewhere. 
As a colleague of mine remarks; he knew of a case of a lady who 
was confined in a brake-van, but it does not follow that a train in 
motion is the natural lying-in place of the human female. I have 
known Culeaw pipiens deposit eggs in a pill box, but the ova so deposited 
though promptly placed in water, failed to hatch out. 
Jt is rather difficult to distinguish the eggs of Anopheles, owing to 
the smallness of the groups. The best plan of searching for them 
is to skim the surface of the pool with a table-spoon and to examine the 
water so skimmed in a shallow glass vessel placed on a sheet of white 
paper by means of a powerful hand Jens. A very good weapon for 
skimming is the table appliance known as a “ crumb-scoop.” 
5. Methods of destroying mosquitoes——I fear that the task of 
preventing malaria by the systematic destruction of Anopheles larve, 
is a much larger order than we have been led to believe. It has been 
gravely suggested that a map of such pools should be prepared for 
every town, but in India, in the rains, such maps would have to be on 
a large scale, for they are simply everywhere. Asa rule, you will not 
find them in large collections of water, especially in the open, but 
every depression in the road-side ditch, every garden irrigation tank, 
every hydrant-fed puddle is full of them. I have met with them in a 
depression in the asphalted platform of a busy railway junction, in 
brickfields, in soakage pools, in river beds in the hot weather ; in fact, 
in every possible situation. Nor do they seem very particular as to 
the cleanliness of the water, or as to its being rich in green alge. 
It would, indeed, require a small sanitary army, and an inquisitorial 
search of private premises, such as would never be tolerated in India, 
to deal with them by kerosine or other larveecides. 
But this admitted, there is no doubt a good deal might be done in 
the way of diminishing their numbers even if they cannot be exter- » 
minated, and in the matter of individual prophylaxis a great deal could 
be accomplished, as these insects rarely fly far, and there must be 
