58 THOMAS L. BANCROFT. 



up as follows : — At the bottom is placed a little dry sand, also a 

 vessel holding three or four ounces of water ; the sand serves to 

 weight the cell and steady the water vessel; into the vessel of 

 water is put two or three bits of straw or cork, this is to assist the 

 mosquitoes rising from the water; as the mosquitoes age they get 

 infirm and frequently get drowned unless they reach some floating 

 object. Over the mouth of the cell is stretched a piece of wet leno 

 and tied tightly with twine ; when the leno is dry a circular hole 

 an inch in diameter is cut out of the centre, and this hole is 

 covered with a watch-glass, concave side upwards (Fig. 7). 



The transference of mosquitoes to a glass cell is done in the 

 following way : — The mosquitoes are allowed to escape under the 

 mosquito-net curtains ; the cork being removed, the mouth of a 

 "collecting tube" is placed over a mosquito, which then flies up 

 the tube; the cork being now replaced the tube is brought close to 

 the glass cell, the cork being directly over the watch-glass ; the 

 cork is removed and the tube put right on to the watch-glass, and 

 at the same time the watch-glass is slid aside, the open mouths of 

 the tube and cell are now together; a puff" of air blown down the 

 tube causes the mosquito to fly down into the cell ; the watch- 

 glass is again placed in position. By such means a dozen mos- 

 quitoes might be put into a cell in a minute without any danger 

 of injuring them. 



Female mosquitoes bred out by me were put into an empty cell 

 of the capacity of forty ounces of water and sent to the home of 

 the filariated subject, who liberated them under the bed curtains 

 upon retiring ; next morning any with distended abdomen she 

 captured by means of a collecting tube transferred back to the cell 

 and returned the same to me ; they were again liberated under 

 curtains and transferred to larger vessels. In the cell storing 

 mosquitoes a section of ripe banana is suspended ; it was found 

 best to cut the banana at right angles to its length in pieces one 

 and a half inches in length with the skin left on. Moulds very 

 soon grow on the cut ends when the mosquitoes prefer to pierce 

 the rind and thus get at the sound tissue. It is advisable to 



