MOSQUITOS COLLECTED IN PALESTINE. 389 



Anopheles maculipennis, Mg., var. ^(iAs »> - - 



This is generally distributed over Palestine, Syria and Cilicia, but although 

 recorded from Egypt by earlier workers, has not been found there in recent years. 



The adult has the wings less distinctly spotted, especially in the male, than the 

 European form,* some specimens being unspotted. The resting position on a vertical 

 lurface is rather flat, this being more noticeable in the male. Gorged females 

 resting on a tent roof hang down in the usual Anopheline position. 



Major S. R. Christophers discovered this faintly spotted form in Mesopotamia and 

 wrote to me in regard to it, mentioning that the egg differs from that of the typical 

 A. maculipennis (figured by Nuttall and Shipley in Journal of Hygiene, i, pi. ii, figs. 

 1 and 2) in that it has a frill of air cells all round the edge, instead of one pair of lateral 

 floats. This observation I have been able to confirm in the eggs of Palestine speci- 

 mens. The full-grown larva and the adult do not, however, appear to differ structu- 

 rally from the type, and it remains to be seen whether the variety here referred to 

 should be regarded as a distinct species. 



The larvae are usually to be found in natural water both fresh and brackish. The 

 adults have been found in very large numbers in tents and huts in camps, in various 

 parts of the country, and often cause a heavy incidence of malaria. They will 

 sometimes travel a considerable distance from the breeding-grounds, especially 

 when emerging in large numbers. On 27th September 1919 I visited a camp at 

 Toprak Kali, Cilicia, which was situated on a hill 500 feet high, and one and a half 

 miles from the nearest water. In the earlier part of the year this site had been 

 considered safe from a malaria point of view. The tents were, however, found to be 

 heavily infested with both A. maculi'pennis var. and A. super pictus. Very similar 

 observations were made on 1st October at a camp in the valley of the Ak river, near 

 Marash, Northern Syria, from which large numbers of cases of malaria were being 

 evacuated. In the first tent examined (square Indian pattern) there were over 300 

 Anopheles in one corner, while a patient lying beneath had 70 inside his mosquito 

 net. These were nearly all A. maculipennis var., with a few A. superpictus ; some 

 of the former were noticed to be biting in the daytime. Although the river passed 

 within a few hundred yards, very few larvae, or likely breeding-places, could be found. 

 In marshy ground and rice fields at about one and a quarter miles distance, however, 

 the larvae were in abundance. 



Breeding commences in April and May, according to the season, in the marshy 

 areas along the coastal belt of Palestine. In the Jordan Valley, at depressions below 

 »ea-level, it probably begins earlier. During the first part of May 1920, I collected 

 large numbers of larvae and pupae in a shallow brackish marsh lying amongst the 

 sandhills, east of Haifa, and near the mouth of the Kishon river. Larvae of several 

 other species, viz. A. multicolor, A. hyrcanus, A. mauritianus, Culex univittatus and 

 C. tipuliformis, were found at the same time. By the end of May larvae were much 

 less numerous, the day temperature of the water in the marsh having then risen to 

 88-90°F. 



♦The North European form has not been found in Palestine, but the two forms occur 

 together in Macedonia. 



