BREEDING HABITS 285 
breeding in the lye barrels where ashes were mixed with water for the purpose 
of making lye. He also noticed them the same season in the holy-water fonts in 
churches. In New Orleans they were also noticed in the holy-water fonts, but 
here, after this had been pointed out, wet sponges were substituted for standing 
water. Moreover, in New Orleans it is the custom to keep wine cool by placing 
it in the pools of water accumulating under the water tanks, and in these pools 
the yellow-fever mosquito was found to breed extensively. In some houses in the 
low quarter of the city water was found to accumulate under the houses, and 
here also the yellow-fever mosquito bred. At San Antonio, Texas, in 1903, 
Surgeon Mason, of the U. 8S. Army, informed one of the writers (Howard) that 
he had found calopus breeding not only in such places as have just been men- 
tioned, but in the water pans in the chicken yards and in the water receptacles 
of an old grindstone in a yard. 
In 1905 Messrs. Busck and Knab, in their respective journeys to the West 
Indies and to Central America, made especial notes on the breeding-places of 
this species. Both of these observers stated that calopus nearly always breeds in 
clear water and very seldom in foul water. They always found it in artificial 
receptacles except a few times in tree-holes near houses and in one case where 
Mr. Knab, at Cérdoba, Mexico, found a larva of this species in a street gutter. 
This larva probably came there by the emptying of some vessel. Goeldi was of 
the opinion that the larva of calopus could only develop in clear water. Busck 
has on two occasions found the larve in very foul water and the French com- 
mission noted that it thrives in filthy water. However, the breeding in clear 
water is the rule. Mr. Knab found that the house of the American Consul at 
San Salvador was especially infested by this species. The larve throve abun- 
dantly in the garden, in the small water-filled stone gutters which served to 
protect the plants from the leaf-cutting ants. In a church in Grenada Mr. Busck 
found calopus breeding abundantly in the holy-water font, and also in several 
other churches in different West Indian islands. This fact was mentioned in 
a paper presented by one of the writers (Howard) before the International Con- 
gress of Sanitarians of the American Republics held in Washington in the 
autumn of 1905, and was widely exploited by the newspapers. The matter was 
taken up by an ingenious resident of Boston who forthwith invented a holy- 
water font in which it is impossible for the yellow-fever mosquito to breed, the 
water being allowed to issue from the font drop by drop from a faucet. Adult 
mosquitoes were found to be abundant in churches where the larve were breed- 
ing in fonts, and under these conditions such churches must always be sources 
of great danger. In Trinidad Busck found that beer bottles were used as a 
border ornament for the flower beds; the necks of the bottles were stuck into the 
ground and in their slightly convex bottoms (turned upward) water had ac- 
cumulated and calopus were breeding. In the broken bottles forming the cheval- 
de-frise on the stone wall around the jail, he found that water had accumulated 
and the yellow-fever mosquito was breeding. Knab, at Acapulco, found these 
mosquitoes especially abundant in his hotel. In the patio there were beautiful 
flowers protected from ants by water in shallow trenches ; in this water calopus 
